About three years ago my life changed in the most fundamentally positive way…I met Tod Harris. A lot of you know Tod from Church. He is considered to be a safe and reliable resource for many families and from what I’ve heard he’s always there to lend a helping hand. My introduction to Tod came on the heels of planning an intervention for someone very close to me. You see, I wasn’t very religious then…you might even say, I had lost my faith. I had a preliminary meeting with Tod before the intervention to discuss the details. I felt ‘okay’ about it…as much as you can when staging an intervention. At the end of our meeting Tod asked me if it was okay to pray before I left. I appreciated that he asked and I hesitantly agreed. BUT unbeknownst to him, it was THIS prayer that would wake me up and change my life. It was a simple prayer. A prayer for the Holy Spirit to give me the courage I needed, to do what I knew had to be done…and I felt it. At that moment I decided to approach everything differently…with courage.
Codependency is insidious. You don’t even see it happening until it’s too late. The habits that co-dependents learn, make it nearly impossible to fix alone. The best way I can describe it, is like a 4 lane highway. All of the drivers on the road represent the different people in the world around you. Some headed in a positive direction, some headed in a negative direction. Some drivers RACE to their final destination, without ever slowing down to take in the beauty of the journey. Some go SO SLOW you want to rip your hair out! Others are reckless, constantly getting into accidents. THIS is where I come in, the codependent. I’m the car that stops to help that SAME reckless driver. In my attempt to help the same car over and over again, I didn’t even bother to check my fuel light. So while the reckless driver has no problem accepting my help and jumps right back on the road unscathed…I am stalled in the emergency lane with no fuel and nothing left to give. This is codependency. Constantly helping someone, or many someone’s, that leave you so incredibly drained, that you completely forget about yourself.
Luckily, for those of us who may be stalled on the side of the road, there is hope. Like a tiny little tow-truck, glimmering in the distance, people like Tod Harris and TLC come along. The codependency family support group offered at Total Life Change helped me to grow in tremendous ways. It is my hope that the lessons I have learned in the Wednesday night meetings will ensure that I will never stall again. But if I do, I have comfort knowing that there are resources available to get me back on track and give me the courage I need to succeed. This amazing group is a free resource offered by TLC and is made possible by the incredible staff and generous community donors and I sincerely thank you each and every one of you.
