Understanding and responding to desire vs impulse
Desire vs impulse: how to tell the difference and ways of responding
People with all sorts of struggles find that impulse can be a huge factor in their experience. Mood, attachment patterns, OCD, and addiction, as well as a number of other experiences, can lead to difficulty understanding our relationship with desire vs impulse, and what we want, vs what are we being impulsively pulled towards.
If you’re new here I’m Laura, a counsellor, nature therapist,somatic trauma therapist, and space holder. I explore the idea of mapping out desire vs impulse with a lot of my therapy clients, so I though I’d share some reflections here. I’m also someone with lived experience of ADHD and Autism, meaning this is definitely something I have to navigate myself.
In this post you’ll find thoughts on:
How we can define desire vs impulse and where they might show up differently
How we can be more aware of, and develop ways of responding to impulses
I’m planning to write a follow up post that will talk about cultivating our relationship with desire, so watch this space. A lot of people don’t think much about desire outside romantic relationships, which leaves it under-explored or misunderstood. Desire shapes how we move through the world; what we pursue, what we avoid, and how we connect with ourselves and others. If you want to explore themes that connect to this while you wait, check out this post about The Lover archetype.
Your relationship with impulse and desire
Let’s start by exploring a few reflective questions:
What is my relationship with impulse and impulsivity?
What is my relationship with desire?
Do I have a sense of the difference between impulse and desire?
Maybe you have answers to these questions, maybe you don’t. I am not sure that I would have had any awareness of these concepts a few years ago and certainly not before I realised that I have ADHD. So how do we define desire and impulse?
How do we define desire?
Desire can be thought of as a motivational state that unfolds over time. It can involve meaning, values and goals, and it can often be delayed, or redirected, without it being all consuming. In psychology, desire is generally a part of ‘healthy’ functioning, motivation, and goal-directed behaviour. Like impulses, desire can be linked to our reward systems, like dopamine and serotonin, but it involves more prefrontal-cortex activity, which is the rational, thinking part of the brain that’s responsible for planning, evaluation and meaning-making.
A desire might lead to a process that goes something like this:
I identify something that I want
I think about why I want it (i.e motivation and values)
I think about practical considerations
I evaluate whether I should act on the desire
Examples of desires might include: a desire to nourish the body with healthy food, exercise, and enough sleep, a desire for relationships that align with our needs and values, or a desire for joy and fulfilment.
When desire might show up differently
This isn’t an exhaustive list, but here are a few examples of other factors that impact desire:
in ADHDers desire can move into impulsivity or hyperfixation
In Autistic people, desire might be sustained over time because of a connection to special interests
Attachment patterns may mean that desire is driven by early relationship experiences
Desire (and impulse) can be impacted by nervous system regulation and dysregulation
Desire can be difficult to connect to, if we struggle with interoceptive awareness (i.e awareness of our internal experience)
In people who’ve experience trauma or oppression, desire might feel unsafe, or connected to a loss of autonomy
How do we define an impulse?
An impulse is usually a rapid, automatic urge to act, which can happen with little cognitive awareness or space for reflection. The process might go something like this:
We experience a building tension within our system
We move to action without awareness
We experience relief, which can be followed by regret
Impulses feel urgent, time-pressured, and hard to resist. They’re driven by the subconscious, along with the brain’s reward systems, which can push us toward action, especially when something feels exciting or relieving.
Impulses aren’t always negative; some are protective, like the automatic response that’s triggered when we accidentally touch a hot stove, which results in us pulling away. The difficulty comes when brain systems that drive fast reactions also push us toward relief, novelty, or excitement, especially when we’re distressed or uncomfortable.”
When impulse might show up differently
In ADHDers, our relationship with dopamine means that impulses can be driven by under-stimulation, as well as over stimulation
For people with Autism and ADHD, the brain regions involved in executive functioning and inhibitory control can function differently, making it harder to stop an urge
Attachment patterns may mean that impulse is driven by early relationship experiences
Impulse can be influenced by the nervous system (more on this below)
Impulse can be harder to notice or understand if we struggle with interoceptive awareness (tuning into internal signals)
In addiction, impulses can be driven by cravings
Responses to desire vs impulse
“Impulse control” might be a term that you’ve come across and I’ll be honest and say that I don’t love that framing; trying to ‘control’ any aspect of our experience is, in my opinion, is likely to be unhelpful, especially if we experience shame, however strategies to build awareness around how desire and impulse might show up for us, and how we might respond, can be supportive.
Here are some suggestions about what this process could look like. I’m not sharing these in any particular order, as what works or you might be very different to what works for someone else.
Understanding your nervous system
Impulse often comes from a dysregulated nervous system state while desire often comes from a more regulated nervous system state. There are other factors, which I’ve discussed above, that can blur the lines, meaning impulse and desire show up differently for many of us. A helpful first step can be developing your understanding of your nervous system and its responses. You can find out what I mean when I talk about nervous system regulation here, and this post talks about polyvagal theory as a framework for understanding our nervous system’s responses.
Naming whether something is an impulse or a desire
When we attend to our nervous system’s responses, we can start to have more awareness around what’s showing up for us. When we explicitly name something, i.e ‘I notice that I’m feeling….”, our prefrontal cortex, i.e the cognitive, thinking part of the brain, becomes more active in our process.
As well as naming your experience, you can ask yourself;
What might be driving the experience I’m having right now?
Can I notice any uncomfortable feelings / thoughts / sensations that I might be trying to move away from?
Are there any other factors that might be present, i.e dopamine seeking?
Can I identify any values or goals that align with the action I’m being drawn to?
Delayed action and creating a pause
If you notice a pull towards something, take a moment to pause. By pausing, we can let intense emotions move through us without taking actions that aren’t aligned with our values.
Supporting and regulating your nervous system
Noticing and naming it (see above)
Safely exploring feelings and emotions that might be present before acting
Doing something else that stimulates the brain’s reward system, like singing along to a song you love, or moving your body
Telling yourself “I can do this, if I choose to, just not yet” and then setting a time limit
Consistently and intentionally practicing a pause when you notice that you’re feeling pulled towards something in a way that feels like an impulse, rather than a desire, can build your system’s capacity to be with and hold uncomfortable feelings.
If you’re looking for guided support, you could try one of my audio somatic journeys here.
How to respond if you follow the impulse and regret it afterwards
We all give in to our impulses occasionally. After the event it might feel ok, it might not feel great, or it might feel misaligned with our values. So what do we do if guilt or shame kicks in?
It can also be useful to intentionally connect with self-compassion. Various studies show that self-compassion can function as an antidote to shame. Can you be kind to yourself, knowing that self-criticism can lead to shame, which can reactivate the process I shared above, where tension starts to build within our system and we can find ourselves back in a space where we feel pulled to respond to impulses.
It might can be helpful to focus on the ‘what now’. Maybe there’s some learning to reflect on, maybe we need to think about what values aligned action might look like, or maybe we need to make amends, take accountability or repair a rupture.
It can also be useful to intentionally connect with self-compassion. Various studies show that self-compassion can function as an antidote to shame, so if shame arrives, can you be kind to yourself? When self-critical parts get loud, it can deepen that shame and pull us back into the cycle; tension builds, we act without awareness, relief is followed by regret, and then the self-criticism returns, starting the loop again.
Is it realistic to expect that we’ll never act on impulse?
In short, no. Impulses are part of our human experience and they’re driven by our subconscious, our brain chemistry, our emotions and even our somatic experiences. What we can do is have a better relationship with our impulses, to give ourselves more space to respond to them. The goal is to build awareness and tolerance, and to support us to make decisions that align with our values.
I invite you to give yourself grace and compassion if you can’t do this perfectly or consistently. As a final invitation, you might ask yourself “how can I meet myself with compassion, when I respond to an impulse, and let good-enough be good enough?
