The Confusion of Being Of or Being In ($)

Independence is more complicated than we're led to believe.

“I'm fiercely independent, but I'm also terrified of being alone.”
— Adam Levine, musician

Codependent or Independent

What you have in mind is not your mind, it’s what your mind is filled with. This old mix-up of being IN the world or being OF the world was pointed out by Jesus. It continues to crop up everywhere; it never seems to be resolved.

It used to be that being analytical meant being unemotional and detached, but this is breaking down. There is a trend with science-minded people becoming more personally involved. Conflicts of real versus fake, culture versus politics, and responsible stewardship is confusing people’s identity. As more people are being held responsible, and more people are confronting their responsibilities, we’re seeing increasing amounts of blame-assigning and acrimony.

This is a critical issue in mental health where you have to balance having a purpose with becoming captured by it. Almost every client I work with—no, EVERY client I work with—struggles with being pulled down by the conflicts that arise from their engagements. Phrased like this, could it be any other way?

The contents of your mind makes you “in the world.” Imbued with it and defined by it. But this state of your mind is not “of the world.” Your state of mind is a separate thing that you create. It is a state of awareness independent of your thoughts. Everyone notices that we feel good or bad depending on whether what’s happening to us is good or bad. In this way we are drawn in: we become what’s happening to us.

We can’t separate who we are from how we feel, at least, most people are not able to most of the time. To keep your emotional awareness separate from your emotional involvement is like keeping two magnets apart. The key is recognizing that your participation and your being are different. They converge because you don’t distinguish them.

Codependent By Training

Everything we’re taught points to their being the same—leading us to believe that we are what we eat. “Being of” means acting in relation to, while “being in” means being defined by. These are entirely different. We would notice this if we had a being separate from our doing, but we don’t because we are taught not to.

In order to be your own person you need to have spiritual self-confidence. You need your own purpose, which is the desire to accomplish something that only you can do for yourself. In most cases, people’s emotional distress stems from a lack of self-confidence.