Base Anxiety

There is a base panic in all people that is akin to animals always looking for food but worse as thinking is involved. So there is a continuous narrative that reinforces this panic or anxiety. Survival, food, shelter, social acceptance, maintaining order but perhaps above all maintaining the image one has of oneself and defending ingrained beliefs in general. The panic arises from our mistaken ideas that we are the body or the Ego, that we grow older and die to lose all. It is manifested by impatience, restlessness, a feeling of urgency a continuous rush, insensitivity, alienation.
Once one identifies the panic as just a feeling stemming from belief in separation, scarcity and finitude, and refuses to spin stories around that feeling the panic is stopped or rather not paid attention to so it will peter out. Then our 'qi' or 'prana', the Chinese and Sanskrit terms for life energy, will sink into the lower 'dantian' the Chinese term for an energy reservoir corresponding to our belly below the navel. Breathing changes to become longer and lower, the body relaxes and a feeling of well-being arises. The mind is cool and alert and sensitive. Intellect can function smoothly, intuition is clear. We move like we were supposed to move, as animals, gracefully.
It all starts with the recognition that we are consciousness and eternal. We are just John Smith playing the role of King Lear (as Rupert Spira puts it). Recognizing our true nature we can relax and regard this world as a playground. We can play or not play, win or lose it really doesn't matter at all. We can now heed our calling as it will come through loud and clear. To the extent that we are still fettered we regard the world as a practice ground.
It is amazingly simple, but it requires an intuition, a sensitivity to recognize this panic and the presence to disengage from it. Reaching that point is awakening, being stable in it is enlightenment.