Lisa Marie Basile

If you’re an empath, you probably easily absorb the emotions of others and need time alone to decompress. If you're like me you're one exhausted empath!

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.

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.”

How much energy does it take to be jealous? Hint: Way too much.

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?

When you hear about a person with a chronic illness working or not working or considering quitting a job, these decisions were not made lightly.

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.

Like a lot of people with chronic illness or autoimmune/autoinflammatory disorders, I went through a dead-end labyrinth to get my diagnosis.

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.