Pema has some good advice for those times when life seems overwhelminng, or unbearably heavy. Lighten up.

Pema Chodron writes in Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living that

…the main instruction [for this book] is simply to lighten up.  By taking that attitude toward one’s practice and one’s life, by taking that more gentle and appreciative attitude toward oneself and others, the sense of burden that all of us carry around begins to decrease.

Of course the hardest part at those overwhelming, heavy times is finding a way to lighten up. Some people are good at it, but I am not one of them. For those like me, the practice explored in Start Where You Are seems to show one how to lighten up…among other helpful outcomes.