How Heiter Moments Can Help Us Recover from Burnout
When Katharina Geissler-Evans first hit burnout, she was in her twenties, commuting long hours, studying full-time, and working alongside it all. “I was constantly on the go and never thought about myself,” she says. “That’s when I crashed.”
“ “I couldn’t work anymore from one day to the next. There was a chance I would fail my course. And all I did was cry.””
In the depth of it, Katharina hoped someone else might help her out of it. But one evening — collapsed on the bathroom floor — something shifted when she realized that she was the only one who could look after herself.
Katharina didn’t know the full shape of her recovery yet. But she started with seeking out the things that she used to enjoy prior to driving herself into a hole of work and study.
What Burnout Can Teach Us
Burnout so often comes when we’ve overextended ourselves. When we’ve said yes to too much. When the doing has crowded out the being.
Katharina realised she needed to get back in touch with the version of herself before it all became too much.
“I had to find Kiki again. The version of me before the stress.”
That meant reconnecting with the person who liked sitting in a café with a book, or going for a walk, or making something with her hands. Katharina began with those tiny gestures: coffee, walks, candlelight, creativity. Just really small things that she knew she was capable of at that point. And from those small things, she built something beautiful — not just for herself, but for others too.
Heiter: Small Joys We Can Return To
The German word heiter translates to light-hearted, cheerful, serene — but Katharina has reimagined it as something deeper. Something more intentional.
For Katharina, heiter isn’t about perfection. It’s not the glossy kind of joy. It’s about the joy found in everyday life — the quiet, steady kind. The kind you can build a life around.
It was through this lens that her lifestyle brand and independent magazine heiter was born. And even now, 10 years in, that original spark — the idea that we can choose to create joy, even in hard times — is still at the heart of her work.
There’s something radical about choosing joy when we’re overwhelmed. About stepping away from the pressure to keep going, and instead choosing to pause.
Katharina still grounds herself in everyday practices, her non-negotiables whether that’s a gratitude ritual with her children at bedtime or a morning cup of coffee, fully savoured. Things that already make a massive difference in her life. Because burnout recovery doesn’t always look like doing less. Sometimes it looks like doing differently.
The Invitation of Heiter
As we head into darker months, many of us feel that familiar sense of depletion. But what if, like Katharina, we could meet it with softness?
“Figure out what you love at this time of year,” she suggests. “For me, it’s pumpkin soup, lighting candles, making comfort food my granny used to make. These moments matter.”
Heiter isn’t a prescription — it’s a permission. A permission to reconnect with your own joys. To remember what restores you. And to begin, again, from there.
Take one small heiter moment this week — a walk, a warm drink, a candle, a laugh with someone you love. Could that help slowly bring you back to yourself.
And if this conversation resonates, listen to the full podcast episode with Katharina Geissler-Evans wherever you get your podcasts.
Or read the extended conversation over on our Substack at More Good Days.
