Suspending Relatability: Before I Tell Mine

Summary: Suspending Relatability is a communication framework that emphasizes intentional curiosity and delayed pattern-matching as mechanisms for deep listening, expanded understanding, belonging, and psychological safety.

One thing I’ve discovered about myself is that I am not a good listener. Surprise? Probably not, if you know me. I’m a good teacher, a good relator, and excellent at seeing patterns. But listening? Terrible. Empathy? Not great.

The more time I spend sitting with myself and reflecting on relationships and relational patterns, the more I notice how much others have learned to accommodate my communication style. To be clear, I’m not saying this negatively or offering myself up for critique. I’m simply making an observation. I’m also becoming more curious about the role of neurodivergence in communication and relational awareness, and about how neurodivergence shapes the way we listen, respond, and connect. As always, I’m looking for patterns.

What is the pattern of communication that feels most comfortable to me? It’s interesting because as a therapist, professor, and parent, one would assume that listening is a necessary and critical skill. And it is… and it isn’t. Relating, for example, is an incredibly useful skill, and it is often confused with good communication. But relating primarily requires strong pattern recognition, not deep listening. I can quickly connect someone else’s experience to something familiar, something parallel, something I already understand.

The problem is that relating can be flawed. It doesn’t always allow space for deep understanding. Listening, in contrast, seems to require a kind of suspension of relating, a temporary setting aside of “I know this already.” It asks for an “I know nothing about this” posture. That stance creates room to notice how experiences can be both similar and different at the same time. It expands understanding rather than collapsing it into something recognizable and manageable.

Honestly, this is the energy I want to take into the new year.

I keep thinking about the classroom strategy “three before me,” the idea that students should ask three classmates before asking the teacher. I love that strategy, and lately I’ve been wondering how it might apply to listening. What if “three before me” became a relational practice? When someone shares an experience or point of view, can I ask three questions about their experience before offering my related story? What might I learn if I delayed the impulse to connect and instead stayed curious a little longer?

The idea both frightens and excites me.

Because that brings me to the question I keep circling back to: are we communicating, or are we just talking? Talking can be fast, efficient, and familiar. Communicating, on the other hand, requires hearing beyond semantics. It asks us to listen for the narrative, the emotion, the meaning underneath the words. Communication demands presence, curiosity, and a willingness to not rush toward understanding, but to let it unfold.

I keep coming back to this distinction: are we communicating, or are we simply talking? Because talking is easy. Talking is familiar. Talking is often about speed, fluency, and response. It rewards those of us who can quickly make connections, identify patterns, and offer something relevant in return. Talking allows us to stay active, engaged, and visible in a conversation.

Communication asks for something much harder.

Communicating requires listening beyond the words being spoken. It asks us to hear the story underneath the language, the emotional contour of what is being shared, and the meaning the person is trying to make of their experience. It requires us to notice what is emphasized, what is avoided, what feels tender or unresolved. Communication is slower. It asks for restraint. It asks us to tolerate not knowing where the conversation is going.

For those of us who are strong relators, pattern-seers, and meaning-makers, this can feel deeply uncomfortable. We are wired to connect dots quickly. We hear something and our mind immediately offers a parallel, a framework, a story that fits. That impulse isn’t wrong. It’s often useful. But it can also short-circuit understanding. When we rush to relate, we sometimes replace curiosity with familiarity. We move from tell me more to I know this already without realizing it.

Listening, real listening, demands a different posture. It asks us to suspend our expertise, our stories, and sometimes even our empathy as performance. It’s not about proving that we understand. It’s about creating enough space for the other person to fully exist in their experience without being translated too quickly into something recognizable. In that way, listening is an act of humility. It is choosing presence over proficiency.

This matters deeply for belonging. When people feel listened to, not just responded to, they feel less alone in their experience. Psychological safety is built when someone senses that their story doesn’t have to be efficient, tidy, or immediately relatable to be worthy of attention. Curiosity becomes the bridge. Not curiosity as interrogation, but curiosity as care.

I think this is where the “three before me” idea keeps tugging at me. It’s not about silencing myself or denying my instinct to relate. It’s about slowing that instinct down. About asking, What am I missing? What haven’t I heard yet? What does this experience mean to you? Three questions before my story is an intentional disruption of my default mode. It forces me to listen long enough for difference to emerge, not just similarity.

And maybe that’s the real work. Not becoming a better talker, but becoming someone who can stay with another person’s story long enough for something new to be revealed. Communication, then, isn’t about exchanging words. It’s about expanding understanding. It’s about allowing meaning to breathe before we try to shape it.

The idea is not a call to speak less or to erase the parts of ourselves that relate, recognize, and connect quickly. It is an invitation to reorder the sequence. To listen before we translate. To stay with another person’s story long enough for difference to surface, not as a threat, but as information. Suspending relatability asks us to trade speed for presence and certainty for curiosity. In doing so, communication becomes more than an exchange of words; it becomes a practice of belonging. And perhaps that is the quiet work of this moment: learning to listen not so we can respond, but so others can fully arrive.

Conceptual Framework: Suspending Relatability

A Listening Framework for Communication, Belonging, and Psychological Safety

Core Premise

Communication often breaks down not because people aren’t speaking, but because they are relating too quickly. When relatability replaces curiosity, understanding narrows. Suspending relatability creates space for deeper listening, difference, and belonging.

Core Constructs

1. Default Communication Mode

This is the individual’s habitual way of engaging in conversation.

• Pattern recognition

• Relating through personal experience

• Rapid meaning-making

• Efficiency over exploration

Key insight:
This mode is not deficient. It is often adaptive, especially for neurodivergent communicators, educators, and helpers.

2. Relating (Pattern-Based Response)

Relating is the act of responding by connecting another person’s experience to one’s own.

• “I’ve experienced something similar…”

• “This reminds me of…”

• “I understand because…”

Strengths

• Builds quick rapport

• Signals recognition

• Useful in teaching and problem-solving

Limitations

• Can collapse difference

• Can replace curiosity with familiarity

• May unintentionally center the listener

3. Listening (Curiosity-Based Presence)

Listening is an intentional shift from response to reception.

• Slowing down interpretation

• Attending to narrative, emotion, and meaning

• Allowing ambiguity

Key distinction:
Listening is not passive. It is an active suspension of certainty.

4. Suspending Relatability (The Intervention)

This is the intentional pause between hearing and responding.

It involves:

• Delaying personal stories

• Resisting immediate pattern-matching

• Adopting an “I don’t know yet” posture

This is not silencing the self.
It is sequencing the self later.

5. The “Three Before Me” Practice

A concrete behavioral strategy that operationalizes the framework.

Before offering:

• A related story

• Advice

• Interpretation

Ask three curiosity-driven questions, such as:

• “What was that like for you?”

• “What felt most important in that moment?”

• “What meaning are you making of this now?”

6. Expanded Understanding

When suspending relatability is practiced, new relational outcomes emerge.

• Recognition of similarity and difference

• Increased narrative complexity

• Reduced misinterpretation

Understanding becomes additive rather than reductive.

7. Belonging

Belonging emerges when people feel:

• Heard without being translated

• Understood without being rushed

• Accepted without comparison

Listening becomes a mechanism of inclusion.

8. Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is both an outcome and a condition.

It is strengthened by:

• Curiosity over correction

• Presence over performance

• Space over speed

Safety allows people to speak more fully, which deepens communication.