Lisa Marie Basile

This is the one time of year, Scorpio Season (Oct. 23 to Nov. 22), when getting a little closer and looking a little deeper is, in some ways, inevitable.

What do you do when your workplace is so toxic that it makes you sick? How do you take action then? What happens when you have nothing left to give?

Anxiety disorders — PTSD, OCD, and Panic Disorder, to name a few — are the most common mental illnesses in the United States, with about 18% of the population struggling with one. No one wants to be put on blast for their weaknesses or wiring issues. I just wish there was a way to better understand the silent majority — the people who suffer every day.

The sum of a city isn’t always made up of its parts.

It’s Monday, 6 a.m. and Sarah, 30, wakes up — as she does five days a week (but really, it’s seven, because the body is a fickle thing).

In this column, I talk about things other people think or say, but not out loud, and certainly not in public. No one wants to say, “People either love me or hate me” because it sounds ridiculous and arrogant and icky.

When the spread was published, all the girls in the shot were small — small enough to notice their not-bigness. It was the first time I felt “othered,” the first time I noticed how some versions of thin weren’t thin enough.

Some grief is inert. Some grief is an engine. Sometimes actively participating in grief, I’ve learned, is one small way we can learn to escape its riptide.

Hygge (pronounced hue-gah) is, according to Hygge House, “a Danish word that is a feeling or mood that comes taking genuine pleasure in making ordinary, everyday moments more meaningful, beautiful or special. Whether it’s making coffee a verb by creating a ritual of making it then lingering over a cup to a cozy evening in with friends to the simple act of lighting a candle with every meal. Hygge is being aware of a good moment whether it’s simple or special.”