Sensing The Emerging Future As An EAL Facilitator
Guest Author: Lissa Pohl, MA and EAL Facilitator - www.EnQcoaching.com
In a recently published article in the International Journal of Presencing, Leadership and Coaching (June 2025), I had the opportunity to explore how equine-assisted learning develops presencing mastery in people and in coaches. However, before we can make this connection, we need to understand what presencing is. Otto Scharmer, founder of Theory U (a change management model that guides leaders to overcome resistance, sense the situation, let go, and prototype solutions), coined the term presencing back in the mid-2000’s. He defines it as "sensing and bringing into the present one’s highest future potential—the future that depends upon us to bring it into being" (Scharmer, 2005). Presencing is a space where we can develop a new perceptual and somatic paradigm, that can guide us through a kind of metamorphosis to the next stage of development or level of consciousness—one that allows us to check our ego and “open the aperture of awareness, so that we may perceive more of the world at large” (Bockler, 2024). It is a space where leaders and coaching practitioners can gain deeper insights into their own naturalness and the ground of their being, where they can sense “the true from the false, the real from the unreal, the important from the unimportant” (Meher Baba, 2000). And since horses by their very nature are masters of presencing, it makes perfect sense that Equine-assisted learning experiences provide people a place to practice the process of presencing in ways that foster presencing mastery.
But why does the process of presencing make EAL facilitators more effective at facilitating transformational change? I would suggest it’s because when we are able to expand both our perceptual awareness and gain access to the more subtle exchanges that happen between a horse and a human we can create and expand the space for our clients to gain new insights about how they are showing up to others, horse or human. EAL facilitators often observe that the more an individual works from their head, the less willing the horse is to engage with them. An EAL experience offers a safe environment for participants to experiment with pressing pause on left-brain thinking and engaging in an exploration of what it is like to be fully conscious. We also know that to successfully collaborate with a horse, our participants need to develop the ability to receive and process honest, in-the-moment, objective feedback from the horse, suspend linear thinking, co-regulate their emotional responses, become fully present to sensing the relationship between themselves and the horse, all while remaining curious about where the interdependent and co-iterative relationship may lead. When an EAL participant explores all these things, i.e. letting go of “doing” while at the same time ‘letting come’ and ‘being’, is when the horse astonishes our client by willingly following them wherever they wish to go, or ‘joining up’. For our client this new way of sensing their way forward becomes an embodied memory that can then be recalled when a personal or professional situation requires them to be able to tap into the emerging future that is waiting to be accessed from this higher sensibility and to create more effective outcomes that support the best interests of the whole and everyone therein.
References
Scharmer, O. (2005). Theory U: Leading from the emerging future: Presencing profound innovation and change in business, society, and the self. (unpublished excerpt from forthcoming book). Boston, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, copyright 2005 Otto Scharmer.
Bockler, J. (2024). Nurturing relational forms of presencing mastery. International Journal of Presencing, Leadership and Coaching Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 7-23. https://doi.org/10.69470/a2xyrv69
Meher Baba (2000). Discourses. Myrtle Beach, SC: Sheriar Press, Inc.
Pohl, L. (2025). The Effectiveness of Equine-Assisted Learning in Developing Presencing Mastery. International Journal of Presencing, Leadership and Coaching Vol. 2, Issue1, pp. 144-162. https://doi.org/10.69470/h8cdsy85
Bio
Lissa Pohl is the Chief Engagement Officer with the Engagement Quotient, a leadership development consultancy based in Lexington, KY. Her work embraces several innovative learning modalities including Equine-Assisted Learning (EAL), Lights On LeadershipÔ Coaching, and The Leadership Circle 360 Profile to provide leaders with the heightened perceptual awareness, feedback, and somatic intelligence they need to fully engage, inspire and lead their organizations.
Her current interest and focus as an Equine-Assisted Learning facilitator includes exploring “spiritual emergence” as an essential component of leadership development while continuing to facilitate embodied learning, expanded perceptual awareness and presencing mastery. She sees and senses that these are the key competencies we need to develop to enable us to attend to the challenges of an increasingly chaotic and disengaged world.
