“Hi, Petunia”

My mother leaves voicemails that begin like this often. “Hi, Petunia, it’s me.”

There is something in that voicemail that is so quintessentially my mom: consistency.

You may know Dr. Ellyn Bader from a webinar, a training, a book. You may have watched her work with a couple in crisis and thought, “how does she do that? How does she stay so clear when everything around her is monkeys juggling on a tightrope?”

I grew up in a house with that clarity. I did not always know what to do with it.

She made me write thank-you cards. Every birthday or holiday gift, or kindness from someone who didn’t have to bother. I found it annoying. I wanted to go ride horses, play in the creek, run up the street to Sarah’s house. She was unmoved by my resistance and consistent with her insistence I develop this habit.

Years later, when training for a 1,000km horse race across Mongolia, I wrote letters to every barn in my zip code asking to ride their horses. I sealed each one with wax. One barn called me back and gave me 12 horses to exercise. Out of that habit she gave me, pressed into me like a wax seal of its own, I eventually started Birthdays from Beyond: handwritten cards as a legacy project for families who have lost someone. A whole thing, grown from a seed my mom planted and that at one time annoyed me.

Here’s the thing about my mother. She is not different at a conference than she is at lunch. The woman who sits across from me at 3 Amigos eating a tostada salad (no taco shell, extra salsa), is exactly the same woman who teaches thousands of therapists about confrontation (indirect and bombshell), betrayal, the tough self-defining work of differentiation.

As a favorite author of mine, Boyd Varty, says: a master is someone who can be themselves in every situation. That is my mother. There’s no performative showmanship, no currying for favor, no code-switching for audiences. What you see is what is always there.

Despite that consistency, I did not always turn to her when I was hurting. My mom’s thoughtfulness – the very thing that makes her extraordinary – was confusing sometimes. When I’d tell her about something hard, she’d ask: “How would you like me to respond?”

I hated that.

I wanted her to give me exactly what I wanted without having to ask for it. That is a very particular kind of longing: the desire to be known without the risk of being vulnerable. She was asking me to differentiate. I wanted a Miss Cleo, a mind reader, to give me what I wanted.

What changed things was working together. It didn’t happen all at once. But bit by bit, like water carving its way through stone.

We’d finish a meeting and she’d stay on the call. “Tell me about your life,” she’d say. At first I gave her almost nothing. But in time, with many reps in the emotional mother-daughter gym, I got used to offering more.

Like the help I needed about a giant fight with my boyfriend.

I was dating someone who argued like a boxer. Always on his feet, always one step ahead. Every time I tried to stick with an issue, he moved. Like throwing jello at a wall, nothing stuck. I’d stand there tongue-tied (and I never feel tongue tied). I’d feel “crazy.” I’d feel small. I’d feel wildly confused. He left me standing in the rubble of a conversation I couldn’t understand.

So I went to my mom. She listened. Of course she asked me how I wanted her to respond. And this time, I knew. I said “help me understand what is going on here.”

And clear as day, she went for it: he’s acting like a plover bird, the bird that feigns a broken wing to lure predators away from its nest. He was distracting me from the real issue. Focusing on my behavior instead of his own vulnerability. Pulling for symbiosis while I was differentiating. It was intolerable to him, so he pointed every finger he could.

Hearing that, I felt a huge weight off my chest. Understanding his behavior when I couldn’t understand his words felt like 900lbs of relief. She had given me x-ray vision into the conversation beneath the conversation. That is what she does. She is a Rosetta Stone for relationships: she translates what’s happening on the surface into what’s happening underneath. Suddenly, you can read the terrain in front of you.

Growing up with a world-famous couples therapist as your mother is a particular kind of education. Not always comfortable. Not always easy. But consistent. Monumentally, profoundly, unwaveringly consistent.

Like a true master, she is the same person in every room.

She cuts through confusion with a laser of clarity.

And she might even make you write a thank you card.

I, for one, am very glad she did.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom,

Molly