The body that speaks, the heart that listens
On desire, resonance and the quiet space where love reveals itself
Introduction: The distinction between desire and love
In intimate relationships, desire and love are often confused. They move within the same territory, touch the same regions of the body and are felt as powerful impulses. Yet they represent two different phenomena. Desire is primarily bodily: a physiological reaction arising from tension, attraction, curiosity or the need for closeness. Love has a different structure. Love does not emerge from tension, arousal or reactivity, but from presence, recognition and resonance.
In my own life, I trusted for a long time on the intensity of desire as a sign of something deeper. The attraction between two people can be so strong that it feels almost self-evident to interpret it as proof of inner connection. Only much later, often after painful experiences, does it become visible that bodily intensity tells us little about emotional safety or reciprocity.
The tendency to interpret desire as love is reinforced by the way the body works. Physiological responses — heart rate, warmth, tension, dopamine — create a subjective experience of meaning. Daniel Siegel describes in his interpersonal neurobiology how the nervous system reacts to closeness: it activates systems of arousal and regulation that say nothing about the quality of the relationship itself. A body can feel drawn to someone who is not capable of reciprocity. That doesn’t make desire less real, but it does make it a less reliable guide.
Attachment psychology shows that people with a history of insecurity are more susceptible to this confusion. Especially in cases of early childhood neglect or relational trauma, the tendency arises to mistake tension for intimacy. The intensity of desire feels like coming home, while in reality it’s a repetition of an old pattern. The body recognizes the dynamic, not the love. It seeks what’s familiar, not what’s healing.
This distinction became painfully clear in my relationship with my ex. Her attraction was intense, immediate, almost overwhelming. But that intensity turned out not to reflect love, only tension. Lust was her language; love never entered the picture. What I initially perceived as deep mutual attraction later revealed itself as a bodily response to someone who was not capable of emotional presence. That insight took time, because desire can feel so convincing that it replaces love.
In this series, I want to explore how desire and love relate to one another. Not to condemn or idealize lust, but to clarify the distinction. Desire has an important place in relationships, but it becomes problematic when it’s used as evidence of love. Only when we understand how the body responds, how attachment systems work and what love truly asks of us, can we discern when we’re guided by intensity and when by truth.
This essay begins with that delineation. Without it, love remains confused and desire remains leading in situations where it entangles us far more than it frees us.
​
The Psychology of Desire: the body that moves
Desire is a force rooted in the body. It’s a response to stimuli interpreted both biologically and psychologically. What is often forgotten is that desire doesn’t arise from love, but from physiological processes that operate autonomously. The body reacts before consciousness can evaluate. This makes desire a valuable, yet unreliable source of information.
Psychologically, desire is a combination of tension, curiosity, promise and the prospect of regulation. From a neurobiological perspective, dopamine plays a central role: the neurotransmitter system oriented toward anticipation and reward. When we find someone attractive, dopamine levels rise, creating a subjective sense of arousal, focus and expectation. This is often interpreted as chemistry, while in reality it’s a primary reward mechanism.
Jung offers a broader, less biological view of desire. For him, libido is not sexual energy but a general life force: every movement of the psyche toward the world. Desire, then, does not point to sexuality but to vitality — an impulse to make contact, to live, to approach something or someone. In that sense, lust is one of many ways in which the psyche moves outward. It’s a neutral force that gains meaning only within the context of a relationship.
Yet the body does not always seek connection; more often it seeks regulation. That is an important distinction. Those who grow up with unpredictability, rejection or emotional insecurity learn to normalize tension. The nervous system becomes accustomed to intensity and later in life interprets it as attraction. This creates a strong, but misleading link between desire and the desire for safety. This happens because the attachment system, when dysregulated, confuses signals of tension with signals of intimacy. Not because the body is ‘wrong,’ but because it has adapted to conditions in which real safety was never guaranteed.
Traumabonding amplifies this dynamic. In relationships marked by alternating closeness and withdrawal — where the other sometimes offers warmth and sometimes pulls away — the fluctuating reinforcement increases dopamine responses. Attraction becomes stronger precisely because stability is absent. The body is conditioned by the cycle of reward and deprivation. This creates the illusion that the intensity of desire reflects the depth of the connection, while in reality it is a reaction to emotional oscillation.
In my own relationship with my ex, I noticed that the desire I felt did not arise from reciprocity, but from a complex mixture of tension, uncertainty and idealization. Her pull worked directly on my nervous system: activating old patterns of striving, hoping, wanting to feel connected, even when in reality there was no foundation upon which love could grow. In such situations, the body follows its own logic and that logic is not oriented toward truth, but toward survival.
Desire is therefore not worthless, but it’s not a moral compass. It tells us nothing about the other’s intentions, nothing about emotional maturity, nothing about inner depth. What desire does show is that the body is alive, responsive and searching. But it reveals little about what it’s searching for or why. The body moves, but the heart must decide where.
In the context of relationships, it’s therefore essential to understand desire as a physiological and psychological reaction, not as evidence of love. When we can see desire as a movement that stands on its own, we lose less easily our sense of the relationship’s quality. Then clarity emerges: not the intensity of attraction is leading, but the degree of safety, reciprocity and emotional presence.
This distinction is crucial to prevent us from repeating patterns of the past. Desire doesn’t need to disappear; it may remain as a form of vitality. But it needs a framework in which it no longer replaces love. Love asks for inner presence; desire asks for movement. Both have their place, but they are not the same. And only when we acknowledge that, can desire find its rightful meaning within a mature relationship.
​
When Desire Misleads: the role of trauma, repetition and emptiness
Desire often feels as though it comes from the deepest part of ourselves, yet in reality it can be a response to old pain. The body is not a neutral instrument; it carries memories, fears and patterns that express themselves in the form of attraction. When desire arises from trauma, it may feel intense, but it's not oriented toward connection. It seeks primarily to repair an old wound.
Within Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory, this becomes visible: the nervous system does not respond to the present moment, but to the degree to which a situation resembles earlier experiences. What the body and mind recognize is automatically perceived as familiar. As a result, situations that are fundamentally unsafe can still evoke a sense of attraction, not because they are good for us, but because they resonate with old structures.
In relationships where tension, unpredictability or emotional distance play a central role, desire can become particularly misleading. The alternation of closeness and withdrawal activates the brain’s reward systems more strongly than consistent attention would. This mechanism, intermittent reinforcement, intensifies emotional dependence and confuses intensity with depth. The bond feels strong, but that attachment arises from dysregulation.
Kernberg’s object relations theory offers further insight. When a partner primarily functions from a place of inner emptiness or fragmentation, sexuality is not used as a means of connection, but as a form of self-regulation. Lust becomes a way to dampen inner voids or to restore a sense of control. Sexual attention feels like proof of existence rather than intimacy. For the partner who is emotionally open, this leads to confusion: the body responds, but the soul remains unseen.
In my own experience, this became clear in the moments when intense desire coincided with a feeling of urgency. It felt as though I had to reach out, as though distance was unbearable and closeness essential. Only later did I see that this urgency did not come from love but from old attachment patterns. The body tried to repair an early deficit by clinging to a dynamic that offered tension, but not safety.
Trauma does not make desire false, but it distorts its meaning. When the body interprets tension as intimacy, attraction grows stronger as the relationship becomes less predictable. This is not a sign of deep connection, but of a nervous system trying to gain control over something fundamentally unstable.
Recognizing this mechanism is an important step toward clarity. Desire can be powerful and still misleading. It can draw us toward someone who is not available for reciprocal love. It can convince us that intensity equals depth, while in reality it is an echo of something that was once missing.
Clarity emerges when we stop treating desire as evidence of love and start viewing it as a signal that requires interpretation. Only when we distinguish between old pain and genuine resonance can space arise for relationships that grow not from repetition, but from choice.
​
The Case: when lust is used for regulation rather than connection
In some relationships, it becomes clear early on that physical closeness and emotional closeness do not align. What at first appears attractive, intense or magnetic gains a different meaning in practice. Sex and desire can function as regulation rather than encounter. They become ways to fill emptiness, soothe tension or restore a sense of control, without reciprocity or inner presence.
In my former relationship, this mechanism gradually revealed itself. The physical attraction was intense and immediate, but the emotional reality behind it remained flat. Moments of sexuality often felt charged, but that charge turned out to be one-sided. Physicality was used at moments of tension, restlessness or the need for affirmation; not as an expression of genuine connection. The desire I felt became a response to what my body registered, while my heart simultaneously signaled that something was missing.
Seen through the lens of object relations theory, this is a familiar dynamic. When a person primarily functions from a sense of inner emptiness, the other is not perceived as a subject, but as a tool for regulation. The relationship becomes an I–It rather than an I–Thou relationship, as Buber describes it. What matters is not the encounter, but the function the other fulfills. Sex becomes an instrument for experiencing existence; not to connect, but to confirm that one is desired.
The distance between body and soul becomes especially palpable in such situations. There were moments when I was physically present yet remained emotionally invisible. Intimacy was demanded, but not shared. There was closeness, but no recognition. The experience was double: my body responded, yet my inner world remained unanswered.
A particularly sharp insight emerged in the moments when my ex described sexual experiences outside the relationship in a cool, detached tone. It was not the content of the act that hurt the most, but the absence of emotion, responsibility or empathy in how it was conveyed. It showed me how sexuality functioned for her as affirmation; as a way to feel real through desire coming from outside. The emptiness she felt within herself was soothed by external attention, admiration and lust.
For me, this meant that my own desire and my hope for connection continually collided. My body reacted to intensity, but my heart confronted the absence of reciprocity. Physically, I experienced it as attraction; psychologically as confusion. Only later did I understand that this tension stemmed from a fundamental difference in what intimacy meant.
Lust without love can feel intense, but it remains superficial when inner presence is missing. The body may be touched, but the self is not seen. The relationship revolves around affirmation, mirroring and tension; not mutuality. This insight allowed me to reinterpret my own experience: the desire was real, but it was not met with love.
The distinction between lust as regulation and love as encounter is therefore essential in this essay. It reveals that not all forms of intimacy are equal and that intensity is not a sign of depth. Love can arise only where the other is truly present. Where lust is used without inner depth, emptiness is all that remains.
Love as Inner Presence: what the body cannot carry
Love is often confused with attraction, desire or tension, but at its core love has a different structure. Love does not arise in the body, but in the inner world. The body can desire, reach, seek and respond, but it cannot carry love when the soul is absent. Love requires something physiology cannot offer: presence, reciprocity and responsibility.
Psychologically, love is a regulating force. Allan Schore and other researchers within neuro-affective science describe how love emerges from the part of the nervous system oriented toward safety and co-regulation. Love calms the system. It brings ease, stability, familiarity and openness. This makes love fundamentally opposed to the tension of lust. Where desire is driven by arousal, love is held by safety.
Love also requires inner presence. Hannah Arendt described love as a form of inwardness that’s not strategic: love doesn’t use the other to fill a void, but opens toward the other from within a shared world. It’s not a movement centered on the ego, but on the encounter itself. In this light, love is impossible without self-reflection, empathy and responsibility for what you evoke in another.
Dialogical philosophy makes this distinction equally clear. Martin Buber differentiates between relationships in which the other is encountered as a subject (I–Thou) and those in which the other is treated as an object (I–It). Love can exist only within the I–Thou domain, where both individuals are present in themselves and willing to acknowledge each other. Lust without love belongs to the I–It domain: it uses the other to satisfy a need, but no reciprocal encounter takes place.
This difference became painfully clear in my own experience. Physical closeness can be intense, but without inner presence there is no safety. The body cannot compensate for an absence in the other’s soul. When empathy, reflection or responsibility are missing, the encounter remains superficial; no matter how intense the physical experience may be. The desire I felt could not land in a vessel that was empty.
That absence was not a lack of chemistry, but a lack of inner depth. Sexuality without emotional presence does not create connection; it creates fragmentation. The body is involved, but the self remains alone. This is where love and lust definitively diverge: lust can occur in a relationship without depth, but love cannot. Love can exist only when both partners are conscious of themselves and of each other.
This insight revealed that the body is not a reliable measure of love. The body can touch and respond, but it cannot determine whether the relationship is safe, emotionally available or reciprocal. Love arises from the capacity to be present; not only with the other, but also with yourself. It requires reflection, honesty and a willingness to truly see one another.
For me, this meant learning to distinguish between what my body wanted and what my heart needed. The body can desire, but love asks for more: it asks for an encounter in which both partners bring themselves. Without that reciprocal inner presence, desire eventually becomes a source of confusion rather than connection.
​
The Sacred Middle: integrating body and heart
When we separate desire and love, a space opens in which we can see how the two relate. Desire does not need to be suppressed, but neither can it take the place of love. The challenge lies in finding an inner balance in which the body may speak while the heart provides direction. This requires a form of self-awareness I developed only much later in my life: an awareness that doesn't respond out of tension, but out of clarity.
Phenomenological psychology offers a useful approach here. Rather than acting immediately on bodily impulses, it invites us to create a space between stimulus and response. In that space, what I like to call the sacred middle, desire and emotion can be seen without being granted instant authority. This inner distance is not a form of detachment, but of presence. It allows us to discern what arises from old wounds and what springs from a genuine need for connection.
That sacred middle is also where mature eros can emerge. Eros not in the sense of impulsive sexuality, but as a conscious, lived form of desire that is not driven by lack, but by reciprocal openness. Fromm describes love as an art that requires discipline, patience and responsibility. In this view, eros becomes a deliberate choice to truly meet the other. The body remains part of that encounter, but it no longer leads the dance.
Neuro-affective insights support this idea: true intimacy can arise only when the nervous system is in a state of regulation. When tension dominates, desire becomes a way to manage unrest. But when calm and safety are present, the quality of desire shifts. It becomes slower, deeper and less focused on immediate gratification. The body no longer seeks regulation, but resonance; no longer release, but connection.
In my own process, it became clear that the sacred middle cannot develop in relationships where tension is structurally present. In relationships where the other is absent, unpredictable or emotionally closed off, the body remains in a state of alert orientation. The nervous system searches for footing and that search is easily confused with attraction. Only by stepping back and returning to my own inner stillness could I feel how different desire becomes when it no longer emerges from dysregulation.
The sacred middle is therefore not the absence of desire, but the space in which desire is no longer distorted by anxiety, insecurity or craving. It’s a mature form of openness in which the body is heard, but not placed in charge. Love can unfold there, because it’s not pressured to generate intensity or compensate for emptiness.
In this sense, the sacred middle becomes a synthesis of body and heart. The body may reach; the heart may receive and discern. Their relationship becomes mature when there is enough inner space to feel without becoming lost. For me, this was a liberating realization: desire doesn’t need to disappear, but it must be held by a foundation of inner stability. Only then can eros grow into something that truly connects.
Conclusion: from confusion to clarity
The distinction between desire and love does not arise on its own. For many people, myself included, it becomes visible only after patterns have repeated themselves. Desire feels convincing at first, sometimes even inevitable. The body responds with force and immediacy, making it tempting to interpret that reaction as a sign of depth or meaning. Only later, once the emotional reality has unfolded, does it become clear that intensity is not the same as connection.
In my own experience, this truth revealed itself through the discrepancy between physical attraction and emotional emptiness. The relationship in which I became entangled exposed how the body can follow an impulse that doesn’t honor the heart. The attraction was real, but the relationship offered no reciprocity, no safety and no inner presence. That realization allowed me to reinterpret desire; not as proof of love, but as a signal that needed understanding.
Psychological research supports this insight. Desire is a physiological reaction that does not distinguish between healthy and unhealthy relationships. The body responds to tension, to anticipation, to unpredictability and to patterns it recognizes from the past. This makes it a poor guide when we attempt to identify love. Love requires more than bodily responses. It requires empathy, responsibility, reflection and a willingness to grow; qualities that arise not from the body, but from the inner world.
The distinction between desire and love is therefore not abstract, it’s practical. It helps explain why some relationships begin intensely, but end in insecurity. It clarifies why attraction sometimes grows stronger as the relationship deteriorates. It reveals why the body may move toward someone who is emotionally unavailable. And it shows why love can never fully unfold when reciprocal presence is missing.
For me, this distinction was freeing. It showed that my desire was not wrong, but that it existed in a context that could not hold it. It helped me understand that love cannot be read from the intensity of the beginning, but from the stability of the encounter. And it taught me that the body doesn’t offer a moral compass; only a movement that needs guidance.
That guidance emerges in the sacred middle — the inner space in which we can feel without acting automatically. There, it becomes visible what desire truly expresses and where love begins. Love can exist only where there is calm, clarity and a willingness to acknowledge the other as a subject. Desire becomes meaningful only when carried by that same inner presence.
With that insight, this first essay concludes. It forms the foundation for what follows. While this essay clarifies the distinction between desire and love, the one that follows will explore how trauma, attachment and relational dynamics intertwine these two phenomena.
There, a second layer of clarity emerges: not only what desire is, but why it can feel so compelling in relationships that do not serve us.
