Hi, it's Alison,
If you just read the word “acronymous” above, or listened to me say it in the recording, and then found yourself asking, “Is that a real word?" you're not alone. The same question crossed my mind! It is, it turns out, and it means “an adjective meaning related to, containing, or characterized by the use of acronyms,” not to be confused with “acrimonious.”
As the first week of May comes to a close in this world that's described in Buddhism as one of 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows, let's take an acronymous minute to STOP: S-T-O-P. S is for Stop: pause, reconnect with yourself, regather your energy rather than dispersing it in this direction or that direction. T: take a breath, sense that inhaling is happening, followed by exhaling. O: observe what's happening in your internal experience: teeth clenched? brow furrowed? emotions visiting? How about thoughts? We might also think of O as “offer”: offer gentle, curious attention to what's actually happening, right here, right now, so that it can be honored and tended to, and then the likelihood decreases that we act in ways we later regret. And P: Proceed with greater presence, empowered by this pause.
You might take a moment to consider, is there a place I could post STOP that would be helpful for me, especially in the context of specific relationships or daily transitions?
As I shared with some of you earlier this week during a meditation class, my phone disappeared a few days ago. Who knows what happened to it, but thanks to phone insurance—which I had recently considered, for a brief moment, canceling!—a soft-spoken man from the phone insurance company hand-delivered my new device and helped me get it up and running. Initially, Mohamed and I were strangers, and then, by a twist of fate, he shared that he was from Ghana. And so I asked him a question, “Do you speak Twi?" “Yes,” he said, surprised I'd heard of Ghana's most widely spoken local language, not knowing I'd spent years nerding out over Twi, studying it in both Ghana and the US.
And so I introduced myself in Twi: Yefre me Adwoa ("They call me Adwoa, meaning I was born on a Monday"), and his face lit up. He asked me where I'd studied, and it turned out that he'd grown up in Madina, right by University of Ghana Legon, where I'd enrolled in fall 2005! And then, as often happens in conversations in Ghana, Mohamed began to discuss politics, sighing and shaking his head along the way: “People complain about politics here, Adwoa, but if only they knew about Ghana's problems!”
What unfolded between us is a perfect example of Dr. Gillian Sandstrom's QUICK acronym that summarizes different strategies for connecting with strangers, which research keeps finding is valuable for our mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. QU: Question—I asked Mohamed about Twi, which leads to IC: In Common. But even if we hadn't had Twi in common, we could have talked about the long-awaited spring sunshine, or how reliant we are on our phones, or the weather. And K: Kindness—expressing gratitude, or offering a compliment, or going out of your way to help. Dr. Sandstrom has also designed fascinating research studies, including a creative scavenger hunt study in which generally pessimistic participants practiced talking to strangers, and she's found that the more we do it, the better at it we become—and our perspective on those we perceive as “other” can shift significantly.
Or, as the saying goes, “what I practice, I become," one acronym at a time. May each of us periodically offer ourselves the gift of STOPping, and strengthen the social fabric one QUICK but not rushed moment of connection at a time. As the Babylonian Talmud teaches, “the highest form of wisdom is kindness” (Berakhot 17a).
