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Leap! Into Music, Movies, Laughter
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Dear Friends of Balancing Act,
Welcome to the February "happy" edition of Balancing Tips, with a couple of musical motivators to get you through our last gray days of winter.
Are we looking for happiness in all the wrong places? Yep! According to a rap by Abdominal & the Obliques, we are. Tune in below for an entire positive psychology course you can dance to.
While you're moving to the Abdominals, read on about how jazz and improv can teach you about creating more satisfying "group flow" at work.
Never mind that my last column took a swipe at the unanswerable questions on psychological tests...Take a minute with ViaME! to find out your top character strengths and let them take you on a happy trip to the movies. Happy sunshine-making! Pat
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The How Of Happiness Rap
 Need more joy in your life? In an earlier edition of this newsletter, I suggested Sonja Lyubormirsky's book, The How of Happiness, as a wonderful resource on ways to bring more joy into your life.
Well, now you can feel the happiness in this rap song that gives you not only her research on happiness but her 12 strategies for making it happen.
I won't say it's the equivalent of a positive psychology course, but it's sure got the basics. Listen here
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Work And All That Jazz
 We've all had moments (I hope!) when we've blissfully lost ourselves in our work. In his book Flow, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about how we can reach this creative, playful state. But flow is not just for "me." It's also for "we." And R. Keith Sawyer, a psychology professor and jazz pianist, turns to jazz groups and improv actors for guidance. Their mix of structure and free form is just right, he says, to support creativity in "group flow." Want more blissful collaboration in your workplace? In this essay, Sawyer offers 10 elements that can make it happen. One of them is "the potential for real, meaningful failure" - a reason he says jazz groups rarely get in flow during a mere rehearsal.
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ViaME! with Movies!
 Positive psychologists have identified 24 character strengths and virtues that we all have in some degree and found certain ways we can use them to improve our mood.
The VIA Institute on Character Strengths in Cincinnati has come up with a list of movies that match your character strengths and may boost your happiness. You can determine what your strengths are - and which movies you might want to check out - on the VIA Institute website.
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CALL IN ON LEAP DAY
(February 29)
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Call in at 11 on Leap Day morning - Wednesday - February 29 - and tell Pat and WOSU talk show host Ann Fisher what you're doing with this one extra day we get every four years.
Hope you'll flaunt the extra 24 hours by doing something happy and fun - whatever that is for you. Can't wait to hear.
The show is broadcast in Columbus, OH, on 89.7 FM, or you can hear it streaming on the web
Join the conversation by phone at (614) 292-8513 or e-mail
LEASH LAW NO. 38: Take Time To Laugh 
Studies show that mirthful laughter - a good, old-fashioned belly laugh - can do wonders for us physically and emotionally. Join a laughter club or become a certified laughter leader (CLL) yourself so you can help others to laugh their way happy and healthy. To find a laughter club near you, or find out how to become a CLL, log on to the World Laughter Tour website This is one of 74 leash laws offered in Pat's book, The Dog Ate My Planner: Tales and Tips from an Overbooked Life.
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