Consciousness of Anxiety
How a consciousness based approach can help shift anxiety
Daniel Gilfix
8/17/20264 min read
"I think alot of our fear and anxiety comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of our nature; where we came from, what we are doing here, and where we are going"
Jiang Xueqin (AKA Prof. Jiang)
It's just a ride. And we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter because... it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride: Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace." (Bill Hicks, 1992)
We are first and foremost spiritual beings.
But it might be helpful to ground this in material reality first.
Anxiety, as a purely chemical process, can be defined as:
Having no single cause. Current scientific consensus identifies it as a multifactorial condition arising from the complex interaction of genetic, environmental, and biological factors. Anxiety disorders are understood through the biopsychosocial model, which posits that genetic predispositions (accounting for roughly 30–50% of risk) interact with environmental stressors and lived experiences to trigger the disorder.
Key components of this condition expressing include:
Brain Chemistry and Structure: Anxiety involves hyperactivity in the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) and dysregulation in neurotransmitters such as serotonin, GABA, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Chronic stress can also cause structural changes in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, impairing the brain's ability to regulate fear responses.
Genetic and Epigenetic Factors: While no single "anxiety gene" exists, variations in genes like 5-HTTLPR and FKBP5 influence how individuals process stress. These genetic risks are often activated by early childhood adversity, which can leave lasting epigenetic marks that alter stress hormone regulation.
Environmental and Psychological Triggers: Significant life events, trauma, chronic stress, and uncertainty act as triggers. Psychological factors, such as anxiety sensitivity (fear of anxiety sensations) and learned coping mechanisms like avoidance, further maintain and exacerbate the condition.
In other words, Anxiety is very much personal and individual in its nature. Its a composite of many things, working in unison.
In a session with me I use the approach of letting the body of the client advise me of the priority. What I mean by this is that there is a natural consciousness of form and function that regulates and coordinates everything within us. Think of this as a conductor of an orchestra. The conductor needs to know how every instrument should sound, in isolation and in union with the other instruments. Make sense?
So this internal conductor is the source of the information that I connect with. It tells me everything I might need to know about the person I am working on. I take the guidance of the natural consciousness of the body and its components (each of which has their own natural consciousness. The liver knows how to be a liver and the liver cells know how to be liver cells etc) and combine it with my own knowledge of the body/mind/consciousness, both physical and esoteric, and start moving things.
We may start with genetics, and the family lineage or past life experiences that created the predisposition, or something very personal that applies to a lived experience. The environment that one grew up in etc. Usually its all of it. But this is where the order, the priority, becomes important.
If you have a liver condition, and take a cleanse, the liver is going to dump its contents into the large intestine. But if the large intestine isn't ready to handle what the liver is going to dump into it then you are just moving the problem down the line and potentially compounding it into something more serious. Maybe the liver, in this example, is holding onto its toxic contents because it is receiving the message that the large intestine is compromised in some way. By forcing the liver to drop its contents we are overruling the natural rhythm, the natural consciousness of the body, and this will not lead to healing.
So with anxiety, as with any condition a client comes to me with, we need to start where the body is most focused, where the mind is most troubled, where the spirit is most disturbed, and draw out as many details about these separate conflicts as we can. Then its about connecting them. Linking them together so the conductor, the thing that knows what you are when you are whole, can address them as one thing in the order that they need to be addressed. So that they can be repaired.
This is a natural function of our form that gets compromised, as we are forced further and further from a life that reflects our true nature. The conductor gets overwhelmed by the cacophony of sound, of information that its trying to sort out. It starts making decisions about what is most important to hold this thing together. Tasks get skipped, compromise and compensation becomes the norm. Blood pressure rises to push the blood through the vessels that no longer have the strength and elasticity to perform their natural function. Plaque builds on the arterial walls to sustain them through this heightened activity. This is all supposed to be temporary fixes that become standard as the relative health of the body and mind continue to deteriorate. Other things take priority.
Suddenly, and over time, the pileup of compensations become so overwhelming that the body and mind forget what they are without it and this becomes the norm. Natural consciousness gets replaced with response to damage.
In my own life I have experienced many miraculous healings. This is why I do this work. As a child I grew up with crippling social anxiety and a severe stutter that was just as much a product as well as a cause. By consistent effort and an opening up to greater possibilities through my spiritual awakening, I now find myself making my living talking to people. My fluency is rarely as issue now. And as a result, my anxiety, that kept me from so much as a younger person, is not something I have to manage. And it is not something I will be passing on to my young daughter. Thank God!