The 3 legged stool model for Mental Wellness

We’ve been looking for a simply model to explain mental wellness that anyone can understand.

We teach people how to manage stress, be inoculated against depression and anxiety, and how to succeed at life. We finally created our own model because existing ones didn’t meet our needs.

5 blind men

Do you know the story of the 5 blind men and the elephant? How each touched a different part and described the animal differently? They were confused and frustrated as each described their experience.

Stigma and confusion around mental health is caused by the same challenge. The stigma around mental health happens because people don’t have a good framework for understanding how mental health works.

When we don’t understand how things work, it is easy to stigmatize them and this leads to a further reduction in understanding because most people avoid being curious.

For years, people outside the mental health field have struggled for a way to understand mental health and people inside the mental health field have struggled to explain it. Unfortunately, like the story of the 5 blind men and the elephant — everyone had a singular view and no-one came from the holistic perspective trying to understand.

Until now.

3 legged stool

We think of, and are explaining, the mental health landscape with a simple metaphor — the 3 legged stool. At HAERT, we have been looking for an easy way to talk about mental health that was both accessible for non-medical people to grasp and clinically accurate. The Three Legged Stool model came from our research. The three legs are Brain Chemistry, Skills, and Beliefs.

We see this model as easy to understand, it has been validated by mental health professionals, and has zero mystery.

Brain Chemistry

Leg 1 is Brain Chemistry.

Our brains operate on a cocktail of chemicals. When that cocktail mix goes off a little, we start to have problems. The core chemicals are Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins.

Many simple human activities have impacts on our brain chemistry.

When psychiatrists prescribe pharmaceuticals for depression or anxiety, they are operating directly on our Brain Chemical mixes.

Again, as a human, you can do simple things to improve your own brain chemistry without needing any drugs. Walking around the block, time with friends, and good sleep are simple levers to improve your Brain Chemistry.

Sounds pretty simple — and no stigma here.

Skills

Skills, what?

Yes, leg 2 of the stool is Skills. Everything we do or want to do is a skill. From tying shoes to brushing teeth to coding in python and making a souffle.

Recognizing the skills needed for a job — is also a skill. We can leverage curiosity to find and learn new skills — and yes, leveraging curiosity is another skill.

Compassion, persistence, self awareness, and emotional regulation are all skills that serve mental wellness. Effective requests, networking, public speaking, and using feedback are skills which are recyclable across multiple contexts. Most skills as recyclable to some degree across contexts.

People get anxious or depressed when they want to do something but don’t know how. What’s missing for most people is the recognition that a thing they want is defined by a skill — and that they can learn that skill.

Public speaking, networking, and leadership are all skills that many people regularly struggle with. Each of these skills has courses, books, and workshops devoted to teaching and improving our abilities. When people don’t have these skills but want the benefits, they may struggle with mental health issues.

Career freedom is another set of skills (as are great relationships).

In the last 25 years, we have learned dozens of new skills — from coding, to presenting, to rebuilding car engines, and editing video. Everyone can learn skills.

Leg 3 is Beliefs

Beliefs can be Empowering or Limiting.

Empowering Beliefs help us move forward, take on challenges, and succeed. Limiting Beliefs stop us and can contribute to feelings of powerlessness.

We often take empowering beliefs for granted because no-one has pointed out the benefits of those beliefs. And we rarely speak openly or question our self limiting beliefs or ask “how” of people who surpass that belief.

We regularly and dramatically underestimate the impact of Beliefs. You can argue that Limiting Beliefs are the foundation for all depression and anxiety. When we have skills we are comfortable and feel in control of that part of our life. I don’t worry about brushing my teeth, driving my car, riding a bicycle, or doing software updates in Wordpress. I’ve done these things hundreds to thousands of times. On the other hand, playing guitar is terrifying because I have no idea how to do it.

1 & 2 support most of the weight

For us to find and change a Limiting Belief, we need to leverage the Skills to get our Brain Chemistry in shape.

Understanding this framework helps us talk about how we maintain and improve our mental wellness — just as understanding nutrition and exercise helps us with our physical wellness.

Managing Brain Chemistry and learning Skills is a big part of mental wellness. Frequently we can achieve our successes by getting the first two legs correctly. The gold standard of clinical interventions is based on the premise of getting brain chemistry and skills working before we work on changing our Limiting Beliefs.

People regularly underestimate how critically important it is to learn skills. I’m talking a wide array of kinds of skills including: leveraging customer feedback, managing up the corporate ladder, and questioning our own assumptions. These are just some of the skills that many people either don’t know exist or think little of because they don’t understand the value.

One of our favorite Empowering Beliefs is that everything is a skill and that we can always learn new skills.

When we interview people who are struggling, they always come back to having problems in the same two areas: managing brain chemistry and finding the skills that they need to thrive.

When people learn how to discern the skills they need— including the skills to manage brain chemistry, their struggles disappear.

Skills example

Last year, I got over my lifetime fear of public speaking in two months.

Part of making this happen required me to practice my speaking skills in front of an audience (I scheduled 4 talks). I resolved my fear by practicing and learning to trust my speaking, networking, and presentation skills. I leveraged exercise and breath work to manage my brain chemistry, performed increasingly longer talks, and enjoyed the events. Today public speaking is fun and easy.

Back to you

Are you doing the right activities to maintain your brain chemistry? Have you identified skills to learn or improve so you can achieve your goals? (self awareness and emotional regulation are great places to start)

Where are the places where you have skills but still may have emotional discomfort? If this is happening, you may have a Limiting Belief lingering. Just like brushing your teeth and finding a sore spot — it’s your responsibility to understand and contribute to your own mental wellness.

Now that you have a framework, where will you start?