An executive has slept badly for two years. He has tried everything: earlier nights, magnesium, exercise in the morning, screens off. Each attempt holds for three weeks, then fades. Discipline, he has. It is the floor that is wrong.
For him, sleep plays out somewhere other than in the bed. Everything rests on his shoulders, every decision comes back up to him, and the body goes on carrying what the organization leaves it. His lever was there: in what he carries, and in what he could entrust to others.
The three planes
Every pillar of the 7 Pillars of Individuation is read on three planes. Not three categories that resemble one another: three dimensions of existence, calling for distinct gestures.
The Body · the material
The Body is the physical and the materiality of life. What has a weight, a duration, limits. What can be measured, touched, tired out and repaired.
On this plane, a fragile pillar shows in the facts: sleep that leaves you tired, food that weighs more than it nourishes, a week emptied of movement, energy that drops at noon. The levers of the Body are concrete, measurable, and often the first to work on: they ask little awareness and quickly produce something real.
The Mind · the cognitive and the emotional
The Mind is the mental: thoughts, beliefs, the stories we tell ourselves, decisions, and everything that belongs to the emotional. What sorts, interprets, anticipates, holds back or sets off.
On this plane, a fragile pillar shows differently: a grip that stays permanently tight, a rumination that turns, an emotion kept in, a decision put off. The levers of the Mind ask for observation before action: seeing what you do, before doing otherwise.
The Soul · self-awareness
The Soul is the relation to oneself: the ego, the way you perceive yourself, the awareness you have of yourself. And, for whoever wishes it, faith, in the content that belongs to them.
On this plane, a fragile pillar shows in meaning: what you do loses its savor, the image to be defended costs more than it returns, background trust thins out. The levers of the Soul are the slowest and the most durable: they settle in, rather than being decided one morning.
Seven pillars, three planes, twenty-one doors
Seven vital functions, each read on three planes, makes twenty-one possible ways in. That is what explains how one same need can be worked on in three different ways.
- Rest, on the Body: sleep, recovery after effort, physical tension.
- Rest, on the Mind: stopping the thoughts that turn, disconnecting, telling apart what depends on you.
- Rest, on the Soul: genuinely delegating, trusting, holding without permanent vigilance.
Three floors, three distinct blockages, three entirely different levers. The executive at the start had worked on the first for two years. His lock was on the third.
What this changes in practice
It changes what you look at. Faced with a complaint, the question stops being “what should I do?” and becomes “which floor is this playing out on?”. The answer determines the gesture, and saves two years of effort in the wrong place.
It also explains the shape of the Written Assessment: fifteen questions per pillar, five per plane, which makes one hundred and five questions. Each question serves to tell a Body blockage apart from a Mind or Soul blockage, pillar by pillar.
What research documents, and what the method proposes
Several components of this framework, such as sleep, movement, social connection, autonomy and meaning, are documented independently by research. Mental and emotional states can, moreover, influence physiology, through nervous, endocrine, immune and behavioral mechanisms.
The organization into seven pillars, their reading on three planes and the notion of a source pillar, on the other hand, constitute the model proper to this method. It is a reading grid and a working hypothesis, not a demonstrated causality. A psychometric evaluation process has been started; its first step will be an exploratory study of temporal reliability, planned for September and October 2026.
The discovery test takes 60 seconds: seven questions, your reading at the end of them, and three first levers, one for the Body, one for the Mind, one for the Soul.
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Certified professional coach · practitioner of Les 7 Piliers de l’Individuation, a method whose name is filed for registration with the INPI · practice under regular supervision. The assessment →