What’s the difference between impulse and intuition?

Intuition. Your inner voice. Your gut feeling. The voice inside you that somehow knows which way to go. It’s the inner map we have that guides us on a path of happiness, love, peace, and fulfilment. It’s an example of the pure magic we have within ourselves which can be so easy to ignore in our busy everyday lives full of pressures, deadlines, expectations, and bills.

When you start to try and listen to your inner voice, you might come to a fork in the road. How can you tell if the voice inside of you is actually your intuition speaking to you, or if it’s just impulse?

Impulse, the good, the bad, and the ugly

Acting on impulse isn’t necessarily always wrong, nor is it necessarily always right. When you act on impulse, you make decisions without weighing the pros and the cons. That is to say, you don’t have a balanced mindset, with a balanced point of view, carefully and calmly analysing the entire situation.

It’s like playing a game of darts blindfolded. You hold the dart in your hand, you know you have to throw it, but you have no idea where the bullseye is.

You might hit the board, or you might hit the friend who’s playing with you. There’s no real way of knowing, and even if you feel confident in your dart skills, you never really know if you’re aiming correctly.

When you act on impulse, you’re reacting immediately and subconsciously to an external trigger. An emotion, a place, a person. You don’t pause, sit down and analyse, you just go for it. A shot in the dark. Impulse is an impelling force or emotion that will trigger some kind of reaction from you. It is, in effect, something that overpowers your being, and controls you.

With impulse comes the huge risk of making a very small, or a very large mistake. And even though mistakes help us grow, you don’t want to keep shooting in the dark constantly, do you? It’ll be a waste of time, a constant process of getting up, falling down, dusting yourself off, getting up again.

You’ll be living your life blindly, with no real control over your emotions, your actions, or your decisions. No real self-control.

Is impulse always bad? 

Not exactly. By some chain of cause and effect, you might hit the bullseye, but there is no real security that you will. And this constant insecurity leads to self-doubt, which in turn leads to fear. And as Master Yoda wisely says:

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering”

— Yoda

Intuition, your very own magic 

Your intuition really is fantastic in the sense that if you really tune into it, it will never lead you to suffering. You can attribute it to the pineal gland, the wisdom that comes from the alignment of the Chakras, the flow of Cosmic energy that guides you through your journey, channelling universal wisdom through your being, or your guardian angel that keeps you safe.

Whatever you may call it, it certainly is something that comes from within. In-tuition. Tuition from within. Knowledge from within. Self-knowledge. In a philosophical sense, it is pure, untaught, non-inferential knowledge.

Intuition is a part of you just as your eyes and your lungs. It has its own natural flow just as your breathing patterns. It exists and lives within you, and you carry it with you wherever you go, no matter who you are with, what you look like, where you live, or how you may be feeling.

Why is it different from impulse?

Intuition is not influenced by external triggers. It is not an immediate, impulsive reaction. It is a voice that operates when the mind and soul is clear, balanced, and at peace. When you can successfully block out any external ‘noise’ in your life, when you can successfully balance out any negative emotions and thoughts with positive ones and vice versa, when you reach that sense of equilibrium, you will allow your intuition the space to flow and to be heard.

Impulse is based fully on an external trigger. You might see a tantalising advertisement flashing from your phone of a luxurious resort. SALE, the words flash. The image triggers a reaction in you, a desire to HAVE what is being advertised, and you immediately, without thinking twice, flick out your credit card and book both the flight and the resort.

A week later, your statement arrives, and you feel the remorse bite back.

Intuition is your safety net that will help you think twice. You block out the temptation, you balance your emotions, your heart rate slows and your thoughts become clear. Does it feel right to purchase the holiday? Does it really feel right deep down inside of you? No matter how shiny the ad, no matter how much it costs, no matter how much you know you owe on your card already, no matter how stressed you may be feeling, no matter how much you want to escape. Does it feel right?

Yes. Or no. Your intuition is the only thing that will give you the answer.

Is intuition always right?

Whether or not it is right will depend on your personal judgement. The good thing is that your intuition belongs solely to you, and nobody else out there has access to it; no one can take it away from you, and no one can perceive your intuition. They can only perceive their own, just as you can only perceive your own.

So what your intuition tells you to do may not be the exact same thing it tells someone else to do – and that is just another reason why it’s perfect.

Your intuition is aligned with your own personal truth -what feels right for you, what makes you happy, satisfied, fulfilled, safe and at peace. It will guide you down your own personal yellow-brick road.

So, if you tune into it correctly, yes, it will always be right for you. It will be your secret to your self-security, your self-knowledge, your self-awakening, your self-respect, your self-love.

Your intuition is the secret to your life. Not to Life in general, as an existential question. It will be the secret to your personal journey, it will be the map that will be showing you the way, step by step. Even though you don’t exactly know where you will end up, you will have the full sense of security knowing exactly where you are now.

Read more of our emotional awareness blog articles.