From Surviving to Thriving: Why I Created This Women's Book Club for Wellbeing
- Kerry Davies
- 12 hours ago
- 6 min read
For most of my life, I have lived in survival mode.
Not always obviously.
Not always dramatically.
Sometimes very quietly.
The kind of survival that looks like coping.
Functioning.
Achieving.
Holding everything together.
Being fine.
Being the strong one, the capable one, the reliable one.
The woman everybody else leans on whilst silently carrying the weight of absolutely everything.
Trauma has existed in the background of my life for as long as I can remember.
Addiction within my family.
Loss.
Fear.
Chaos.
Hypervigilance.
Walking on eggshells.
Responsibility that was never really mine to carry.
Learning how to read people's moods before I even understood my own.
Learning how to survive emotionally before I ever learned how to feel safe.
And somewhere along the way, I became the rescuer.
The fixer.
The peacekeeper.
The woman who could hold everybody else whilst quietly falling apart herself.
I carried guilt for years.
The kind that makes you believe everybody else's wellbeing is your responsibility. The kind that makes you abandon yourself whilst trying to save everybody else. The kind that keeps your nervous system permanently switched on, because your brain has learned that if you stop scanning, stop fixing, stop managing, something bad might happen.
And the truth is, for a very long time, those parts of me protected me. They helped me survive. But they also exhausted me.
Because eventually there comes a point where survival stops feeling like strength and starts feeling like disappearance. A point where you realise you don't actually know who you are underneath all the coping mechanisms, the people pleasing, the caregiving, the carrying.
You just know you're tired.
Not "need a holiday" tired.
Soul tired.
Nervous system tired.
Womanhood tired.
The kind of tired that comes from holding yourself together for decades.
When High-Functioning Looks Like Thriving, But Feels Like Disappearing
I'm also a single parent, and there is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes with carrying so much whilst still trying to create safety, stability, love, and softness for your children.
My daughter has ADHD and there have been periods over the years where life felt incredibly heavy.
School struggles.
Emotional dysregulation.
Anxiety.
Hospital visits.
Trying to hold her whilst also trying to hold myself.
I know there will be women reading this who understand exactly what that feels like.
There have been periods of my life where I completely lost myself.
Periods where I was barely sleeping, barely eating, barely functioning. Where trauma wasn't something that happened in the past, it was living inside my body every single day.
And then there have been moments where I've felt deeply alive. Connected. Grounded. Hopeful. Like myself again.
Every single time I look back at those moments, there is one thing at the centre of them:
Community.
Not surface level connection.
Not networking.
Not performance.
Real belonging.
How a Women's Book Club for Wellbeing Changed My Life
A few years ago, I was part of a book club that genuinely changed my life.
Not because it promised perfection or turned me into a different person. But because it gave me perspective, reflection, growth, connection, and a reason to think beyond survival. Alongside deep self work, meditation, and learning, it helped me reconnect with parts of myself that had been buried underneath years of coping.
And recently, I attended an event called The Business of Belonging.
I looked around the room and felt something I hadn't felt in a very long time.
Expansion.
And honestly, it felt like somebody had held a mirror up to me.
Because I suddenly realised how small I had made my life, particularly after a serious health scare a couple of years ago that completely shook my nervous system and my sense of safety in the world.
Without even realising it, fear had slowly made my world smaller.
Safer.
More controlled.
Less expansive.
Not because I was weak or broken. But because my nervous system was trying to protect me.
A couple of days later, I had a call with my coach and spoke openly about this idea, where it came from, what it meant to me, why it felt so important. And she said something that stopped me in my tracks:
"You are one of the most held together people I've ever met."
It hit me hard. Because in that moment I realised how unbelievably good I had become at masking.
Not in a fake way.
Not consciously.
Protectively.
Survival mode is incredibly intelligent. It teaches you how to function, how to cope, how to keep going. How to be the woman who handles everything so well.
And the truth is, survival mode does not always look chaotic. Sometimes it looks highly functioning. Sometimes it looks like the woman everybody admires. And I think so many women are doing exactly that, quietly carrying far more than anybody realises.
The Five Pillars of Wellbeing That Shaped This Community
Sitting in that room reminded me of who I was when I felt most alive. Not because life was perfect. Not because trauma disappeared. But because I was connected. Growing. Part of something.
And I realised something important: I wanted to create the thing that I need.
Not another self-help space.
Not another hustle culture community.
Not another "be your highest self" performance.
Just a space.
A real one.
Rooted in the five pillars I believe fundamentally shape our wellbeing:
1. Sleep — the foundation everything else is built on
2. Nutrition — nourishing yourself, not punishing yourself
3. Movement — gentle, joyful, yours
4. Belonging — real connection, not performance
5. Purpose — a reason to think beyond just getting through the day
Not in a rigid or performative way. Not through pressure, perfection, or shame. But through gentle, grounded, honest growth. Because I don't believe healing happens through forcing ourselves to become somebody else. I think it happens through slowly learning how to reconnect to ourselves or for some of us, discovering ourselves for the very first time underneath all the survival.
Why I Almost Didn't Share This
I've been really on the fence about sharing any of this publicly. Because outwardly, I'm very well held together.
Capable.
Successful.
Grounded.
I've built businesses.
I support other people professionally.
I'm the woman who gets on with things.
And for a very long time, I thought strength looked like keeping things quiet.
Not complaining.
Not burdening people.
Getting on with life no matter what was happening internally. There is strength in that. But I also think there comes a point where constantly holding everything together stops being strength and starts becoming armour.
Life is too short to be anything other than honest.
Not performatively vulnerable.
Not oversharing for the sake of it.
Just honest.
Honest about the fact that life can be beautiful and hard.
That you can be successful and still struggle.
That survival mode can become so normal you don't even realise you're living inside it anymore.
Is Fiver to Thriver for You?
Maybe you're here because something in this resonated.
Maybe you're high-functioning but exhausted.
Quietly carrying trauma, grief, burnout, heartbreak, caregiving, pressure, motherhood, or emotional exhaustion whilst still showing up every single day.
Craving connection but not quite knowing where to find it.
Not wanting to spend your life endlessly fixing yourself.
Just wanting somewhere that feels like home.
Somewhere you can exhale.
Somewhere to grow without pressure.
Reflect without judgement.
Be inspired without comparison.
Talk about books, life, emotions, boundaries, identity, purpose, nervous systems, womanhood, healing, and becoming.
A space where we can hold the messy parts of life without living there forever.
Fiver to Thriver is not about becoming somebody else.
It is about becoming more fully yourself.
And I'm not leading this from a pedestal. I'm in the messy middle too. I'm creating this because I need it as much as you might.
Come as you are. Leave feeling a little more whole.
Join the Fiver to Thriver Community
Fiver to Thriver is a £5 per month women's book club for wellbeing, built around the five pillars of health: sleep, nutrition, movement, belonging, and purpose.
No pressure to keep up.
No pressure to perform.
No pressure to read every book.
Just a gentle, grounded space for women who want to feel a little more like themselves again.
What's included:
Monthly book selection focused on wellbeing and growth
Private podcast with chapter summaries, no time to read? No problem
Author conversations and interviews
A private community to celebrate small wins and find your glimmer
Weekly encouragement that meets you where you are
For less than a Starbucks a month, you get a space that actually helps.
Join us at www.fivertothriver.com
Kerry x
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