By Rachel Sokol
For years, audiences watched Kari Wells on the hit reality show Married to Medicine and saw how Kari—a Brit married to American physician Dr. Duncan Wells — carried herself with poise and elegance. Nicknamed “The Queen of Class” by entertainment host Andy Cohen, Kari appeared unshakable. But off camera, Kari was dealing with many hidden traumas.
Her new book, From Attitude to Gratitude: 15 Practices for Transforming Pain into Power, pulls back the curtain on her seemingly charmed life. The book is an insightful self-help resource and really lets readers into Kari’s private life as she candidly shares in detail of the traumatic experiences she's endured, practices that guided her through those traumas, and life lessons.
THE REAL KARI WELLS
“Kari Wells was definitely misconstrued in Bravo TV’s ‘Married to Medicine’ season one,” she says in an exclusive conversation with Preferred Health. “Season 1 didn't show the real me.” Returning in later seasons as a friend of the cast felt more natural for Kari, who vowed to stay away from reality TV drama. “It felt more light-hearted and fun, and that’s kind of my real personality. I'm a person with deep empathy and compassion because of the wounds that I've had over the years.”
In her book, Kari shares painful events she once kept fiercely private: a violent armed robbery that left her with severe PTSD, the loss of her sister to an overdose, an eating disorder during her modeling years, and more. The result is both memoir and guidebook, offering 15 gratitude-based practices, including what she calls her “Fundamental Five,” to help readers rebuild resilience and reclaim their narrative.
So, why tell all these stories now?
“It's so easy to look at a person who (seemingly) has everything,” she says. “I have wealth, I'm married,
I have children…On the outside, it can appear you have everything. But materialistic things can actually
be nothing, because they're worthless. When you have true pain, none of that is going to bring
you pleasure.”
The book opens up with Kari reflecting on a vacation to Hawaii. She was sitting on the beach, surrounded by family. By all appearances, life was wonderful, but inside, she felt scared, lonely, and vulnerable. “I should be happy. I'm not,” she recalls thinking. “‘Should’ can often be the worst word, because it puts you in a position of really judging yourself.” That realization marked a turning point.
“I really felt like my rock bottom was not the end of my story. It was a place where I finally had to face my truth.”
TRAUMA AND STRAIGHT TALK
Reading like a page out of her diary; Kari recorded private notes from a life-threatening robbery at a nail salon in Atlanta in October, 2019. On that night, Kari recalled taking the last appointment of the evening to avoid a crowd. When her nails were dry and she was ready to leave, two men stormed inside the salon.
The nature of the robbery turned violent as salon staff, Kari, and another customer were forced to the ground via gun point. Kari recalled one of the gunmen shouting, “No one f---ing move!” as he fired his gun in their direction. “Nobody is leaving this place!”
Frozen in fear, Kari tells readers, "One of the men saw me standing. He came up to me, his face inches from my face. Then, without warning, he whipped his gun towards my head. A sharp, blinding pain exploded at the back of my skull. "'Get down b*tch!' he yelled. "I hit the floor hard. Then, everything went black."
Kari then crawled out from behind the reception counter on a floor now covered with cash and broken glass.
"From my place on the floor behind the reception counter, all I could see was the blur of the ground, the feet of the gunmen, and the body of the girl near me," she said. "Amid the chaos, I heard one of the robbers shout, “That white b*tch is on the phone!” All the employees in the salon were Asian, and the only other client still there was a young Black woman, so I knew he was talking about me. My thoughts were shattered by the heavy sound of feet stomping toward me. My heart stopped with fear, and I froze, still on my hands and knees, staring at the ground. I prayed I would become invisible, like a child playing hide-and-seek, and that the man headed my way wouldn’t notice me crouching on the floor. But that was not the case. The stomping stopped, along with the beating of my heart, as one of the gunmen approached me, his boots appearing in my line of vision.
He forcefully pushed the cold metal gun against the back of my head, forcing my face to press up against the ceramic floor tile. “Are you on the phone, b*tch?” he screamed into my ear. “I will f**king kill you, b*tch! I will f**king kill you! Are you on the phone?! Are you on the phone?!” He shouted this over and over. I stretched my hands across the floor, lying flat so he could see I wasn’t on the phone.
“I am not on the phone!” I tried to yell in a broken voice. I closed my eyes and thought once again of my children and how much they still needed me. I was crippled with pain and confusion, and I felt completely powerless, but from some deep place within me, I told myself, No matter what, I am going to do whatever it takes to make it out of here alive."
This was not at all how I’d always imagined I would react in a situation like this. I never thought that I would feel so impotent, so helpless. But as Mike Tyson so eloquently put it, in the press conferences before one of his big fights, “Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth.”
Lucky to walk away from this traumatizing event, Kari suffered a concussion, bruises, cuts, a badly swollen forehead.
Kari— who also suffers PTSD from the violent robbery— says her trauma therapist suggested she write down what happened instead of repeatedly recounting it. Years later, she reread those pages.
THE FUNDAMENTAL FIVE
“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is about turning pain into purpose.’” And that realization, combined with her Hawaii trip —where she felt so lost— kicked off her book and additional self-exploration.
Understandably, Kari is a strong advocate of trauma therapy, especially Eye Movement Desensitization Therapy (EDMR). “It's a very, very good trauma therapy… If anyone is suffering trauma, that would be the first step to allow yourself to process it.”
Additionally, she believes healing also requires a subtle internal shift. Instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” she began asking herself, “Why is this happening for me?” That question re-framed everything. “I didn't see my wounds as a weakness. I sort of saw them as survival proof.”
Kari Wells’ “Fundamental Five” from From Attitude to Gratitude are five simple daily practices designed to bring more peace, joy, and contentment into everyday life. While easy to read, their true power comes from practicing them consistently—ideally for at least two weeks. Gratitude appears at both the beginning and end of the list because, as Kari Wells emphasizes, gratitude is one of the most powerful paths to lasting happiness.
The Fundamental Five:
1. Start your day with gratitude. Begin each morning by reflecting on the blessings in your life.
2. Live in the present moment. Let go of past regrets and future worries, and focus on the now.
3. Repeat a positive mantra daily. Use affirmations that reflect the person you are—or want to become.
4. Do something kind for someone else. Even small acts of compassion can make a meaningful impact.
5. End your day with gratitude. Before sleep, reflect on the people and experiences you’re thankful for.
Practiced daily, these simple habits can shift perspective and create a deeper sense of fulfillment.
“People think ‘gratitude’ is just a word… It's not a mood.
It's a decision that you make every day, especially on hard days,” she explains. “It's kind of a muscle. The more you use it, the easier it becomes.” She is quick to add, “It's not denying pain. It's a way of giving your pain a purpose.”
HEALING IS A JOURNEY
These days, Kari continues prioritizing mind and body; she loves yoga.
“Yoga is really meeting your body where you are,” she says. “It's the union of your body with yourself.”
She is also developing a new project, a video series titled Aspen Unfiltered, focused on the real stories behind Aspen’s glossy image.
Above all, Kari wants readers to understand she did not write this book as a guru with all the answers. “I didn't write this book from a place of having it all figured out. It was almost like I crawled up the mountaintop as a way to write this book.”
Ultimately, Kari believes, “you don't just change your mindset, you change your life story.” This includes “trusting yourself, being kind to yourself… and not feeling like when you surrender you're giving up, but knowing that it's shaping your life into who you're supposed to be.”
From Attitude to Gratitude: 15 Practices for Transforming Pain into Power by Kari Wells is published by Forefront Books and distributed through Simon & Schuster. It’s sold on Amazon.com, and at Kari's official website: https://kariwellsofficial.com.