A sudden impulse to do something, go somewhere, act on something that previously we thought best left alone until some more consideration is given to it – here is a look at three instances of what causes the urge to arise and trip us up in regards to our past difficulties: 

  • Trauma response – that which had happened to us speaks itself unbidden – doing as we were told, thinking as we were told to think,…, sometimes even acting against others unconsciously the way it was done in the past against us…
  • Learned response to protect ourselves from trauma, which is currently a maladaptive strategy to escape the perceived potential threat
  • A general trend, in different situations than those we are working on, to act on impulse may escalate until more healing is achieved 

During the time of childhood difficulties, we unconsciously took in what we must do as demanded by the trauma, and then as we try to somehow defend ourselves against it, we learned our typically maladaptive response to it…. It was all we could think of at the time and it saw us to survive what we were in. It is only maladaptive now, in the present where we are not a child and have other options, had that past not been gripping us out of them… Once we begin our healing in earnest, this may have two effects, of highlighting how we respond as well as becoming aware that we want to change it, that we are wiser than those early childhood out-of-necessity responses were. We are on the whole now becoming more and more aware of those…, and that if we had time to reflect we would wisely choose differently…  Yet are tripped over and over again by our sudden urges to do as then… in effect. This is a natural path to healing – i.e. one to be walked and observed step by step to get where we want to be. 

Moving through the stages of healing 

Spotting our reaction as a sudden urge and seeing that they are mimicking the past we want to heal ourselves from – is a great point to reach, because once we catch ourselves making an urge-full, sudden response, choice of how to respond to an arising situation becomes possible for us… and our healing is nearer… 

Sometimes we consider the situation and we even manage to recall that we have recently decided that we are going to take our time in order to work out what our response is. Maybe write it down, go for a walk, sleep on it, etc.. before we respond and then all of sudden an urge arises to speak out – send that message, make the call… Even if in the back of our mind we know better, we still do it – as past trauma forced us in the past – to emulate it – to repeat the same action that we would have done then. 

We need to allow for patience towards ourselves in this – a  natural process of healing – the path to get there and to know our true, healed person’s response… 

Changing how we did it during our time of injury, must take phases of learning. Our release from trauma and our learning of the new healthier ways can only come in stages… Gradually, first we get the inkling of a better way, one that makes us feel gently, subtly more comfortable in ourselves. Then we notice once again, we did it the old way yet again. Fret not please, this is natural and to be expected. Next we catch it that bit closer to yet again making the old urge-full choice… then we see ourselves doing it while also knowing it’s the old way and not what we want…

At this point we need to kindly pat ourselves on the back that we are getting closer to the stage where we will be able to not do it the old way… and from here we catch ourselves before we do it again… and earlier and earlier until we are in just our usual command of what to do for the best. Such as we do know how to, in the tasks that we are good at. 

An urge is an urge, is an urge – and we want to note it… regardless of what situation it arises in regards to…

The above is in regards to a specific issue – type of situation that perhaps we have been looking into and working on for some time. Yet, as life goes on every day and some new different situations to what we have been keeping our eye on, may arise too. So to handle those, if we simply observe our urge yet arising and hold it in the wider context of our whole self – taking into account we have a sudden urge – can we delineate its base, meaning, alternatives and look at it against what we would normally consider a good response on our part…? Our urges in this way become our guides as to where we need some more of our attention and strengthening of ourselves. An urge becomes a pointer for us – oh, here is some bit of ourselves that is still hidden in the shadow of the past and we want it in the present, in the light of today’s lovely open hue. 

In all three instances as we find ourselves having our urge-full response flaring up, we can choose to have some self designed rules in place – a delay of two hours, or days if applicable and to make sure we engage ourselves fully in some other activity during this time – this will free us from the grip of the ‘Urge’ that we are trying to see solved for ourselves.

From here on we can learn to build our inner space to hold us in our response, where urge becomes a smaller and smaller flare against the field of ourselves knowing, accepting and approving of ourselves – because in this process of healing we will have earned the qualities to make this true of oursleves, as well, as we naturally have the right to it – to our own fullness of life, free from the trauma…, even if it only happens step by step. We have earned each step of our healing progress.