Episode 153: Embodied Choice In Coaching with guest, Lisa Murrell

Your mind loves to act like the CEO of your life, but it’s often the last to know what’s true. Garry Schleifer sits down with Lisa Murrell, PCC, to explore embodied choice and why clients don’t actually make decisions with thoughts alone. We talk about somatic coaching in a way that’s practical, grounded, and immediately usable, whether you coach leaders in Fortune 500 environments or support clients through personal transitions.

Lisa shares how her work in systemic coaching and equine facilitated learning changed the way she understands “getting unstuck.” The big shift is simple but radical: the body is a sensory device, and breath, tension, and capacity are data. When a client’s nervous system is braced, options shrink. When we slow down, notice what’s happening below the neck, and build real trust, choice expands. We also dig into intersubjectivity, the shared space between coach and client where presence replaces performance and new possibilities can emerge.

You’ll hear why new coaches can get trapped chasing the “best coaching questions,” and what to do instead. Lisa explains her signature reframe “What would you do if this was your horse?” and how it works as a metaphor even for non-horse people, helping clients step out of self-judgment and into clearer action. If you’re curious about executive coaching, embodied leadership, somatics, and coaching presence that actually changes behavior, this conversation delivers.

Watch the full interview by clicking here. 

Find the full article here.

Learn more about Lisa here. 

Gift: "The Systemic Coaching Framework: 5 Questions Worth Sitting With" 
A free guide for coaches who want to help clients make more embodied, authentic choices. These five questions bypass cognitive override and access the whole-system intelligence your clients already have — they just haven't been asked the right questions yet.

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/

Transcript

Welcome To Beyond The Page

Garry Schleifer 0:07

Welcome to Beyond the Page, the official podcast of choice, the magazine of professional coaching, where we bring you amazing insights and in-depth features you just won't find anywhere else. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm excited to expand your learning as we dive into the latest article, have a chat with this brilliant author behind it, and uncover the learnings that are transforming the coaching world. When you have a moment, join our vibrant community of coaching professionals as we explore groundbreaking ideas, share expert tips and techniques, and make a real difference in our clients' lives. Remember, this is your go-to resource for all things coaching, but in the meantime, let's dive into our podcast. In today's episode, I'm speaking with author Lisa Murrell, who is the author of an article in our latest issue, 23 years in the making, The Power of Choice. The article is entitled Coaching Choice from the Ground Up: Your Client's Body and Spirit Know Before Their Mind Does. A little bit about Lisa. She holds a BA. She's a PCC with the ICF and a partridge in a pear tree. It's just so much alphabet, right? She's the founder of Equine Alchemy and founding partner of MetaSystem Integrated Strategies. For more than 26 years, she has worked globally with Fortune 500 companies, including Amazon, Coca-Cola, London's Business School, and Pfizer, specializing in Organizational Development and Executive Coaching. Lisa pioneered the integration of Equine Facilitated Learning with ICF accredited coaching certification programs, the only program of its kind for over 15 years. She is the author of Inspiring Real Change Using Systemic Experiential Learning to Develop Systems, Organizations, Teams, and Individuals. And I've known Lisa forever. She even remembers. Yeah, whatever that was. Way back. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us today.

Lisa Murrell 2:13

It's so fun to see you again, Garry. Way too long.

Garry Schleifer 2:16

Way too long. And let's not make it so long next time. Don't be a one-hit wonder. Speaking of, so what called you to write for this particular issue?

Why Horses Belong In Coaching

Lisa Murrell 2:30

Well, fortunately, you have been generous in publishing a couple of other little ditties that I did, and that was a while ago. And of course, the work that I'm doing is evolving. And actually, as we were chatting before we started doing this, the work with horses has evolved as well. And actually, okay, so what? That's always the big question. So you go have this horse thing go on. Why are we here with horses? What does this have anything to do with coaching? Well, that's what I've been discovering. That's what because of my background as a coach. I think I became a coach in 2000, if you can believe that.

Garry Schleifer 3:13

Oh, you were a year ahead of me.

Lisa Murrell 3:15

Right? Yeah, well, I can't remember exactly when ICF officially started, but I was doing coaching before it was called coaching.

Garry Schleifer 3:25

A lot of us were, yeah.

Lisa Murrell 3:27

So with that kind of background, obviously, I just saw that there was such a need for this learning, but it needs a translator to the corporate world, to just people who were seekers of okay, I have this problem, what do I do to solve it and get to this place, which is usually the role of the coach, right? And so I had the experience, background, and vernacular through working within the coaching and corporate world and within the learning from horses world. And so when you sent out saying what this particular issue was going to be about, I thought, oh my gosh, this is perfect for this. So you kind of framed it all up for me.

Garry Schleifer 4:18

Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you. And you know, since you wrote for us, we've been doing podcasts. So now I can't wait to have you on another podcast because

Garry Schleifer 4:27

I like podcasts, they're so fun and easy. And you have one as well. What's yours called?

Lisa Murrell 4:34

Oh, I can't remember exactly. Something about equine alchemy and let me get back to you on that. I can't remember it right now.

Somatics And Embodied Choice

Garry Schleifer 4:44

Well, it's easy enough to look up because so many people look for coach magazine, not choice magazine. And oh right, very one art. So just search Lisa Murrell Equine Coaching and you'll find it in your usual channels. So I want to you brought up something, and I love what you said here and this goes with why clients. Many coaching clients don't know what they want, they think they do, but that often changes during the coaching relationship. Initially, clients may have a specific goal or need support with moving forward in a current situation or get unstuck. These two are closely related, but the client doesn't see the connection. It's a hit it's hidden in a blind spot. It just what you were just saying about choice and that sort of thing. So right there in the article, folks, make sure you get your copy. One of the things that we were talking about in the green room earlier is that we've been around coaching for a long time and it's evolved, and the language wasn't there for us, for what you do and for what a lot of people do. In particular, you wrote about embodied choice, right? And I think that's something that's evolved over time. What does that actually mean? And and how does it how is it different from the way we were trained as a coach back 25 and 26 years ago?

Lisa Murrell 6:16

I don't know if I can remember. No, I can't. It's great that people are taking a new look in for a lot of people the first look at what is called somatics. A lot of people say to me when I start talking about if they ask me, what do you, what is it that you do, blah, blah, blah. And I mention that word, and a lot of people don't know what it means. And it means it's a Latin word, soma, which means of the body, right? So I'm so happy that that's becoming a trend for people to just pay attention to something below their neck, right? Who who knew? Who thought about it? Again, this is the evolution of society, not just the evolution of coaching. Coaching just follows what society is laying before us or what we come up with, and um our brains are about to explode. Too much, not enough, it's just there's only so much that we can handle. And the thing that's interesting is that we have a whole other well of information, and that's our bodies, but we don't usually know how to access that if we even know that it is a source of information, and so one of the premises on in the work with horses is that your entire body is a sensory device. Now, to answer your question about how is what this is different to how we learn, I never heard any language about sensory device. No. When I first started coaching, actually it's always interesting. I didn't have, I'm working on a book now that is about ICF coaching and how that fits with this work. But one of the things I was writing about is that people don't understand that there's a connection between being in your body and open and what happens when you speak. And so coaching in the beginning was really about okay, it was similar to consulting, right? You would go in and you say, okay, but because I was a consultant that also coached leaders consulting, if you will. And I would go in and I was very good at spotting what was going on in the organization because my background in OD was a very big part of coaching. And that's what I was supposed to do. That's what the contract was. And so the shift to coaching was kind of challenging because I didn't know that I wasn't supposed to have an answer, right?

Garry Schleifer 9:13

Yeah, right.

Intersubjectivity And Shared Coaching Space

Lisa Murrell 9:14

That was that was very, very new for me, and that evolved over the years, as I think coaching has right. And I think ICF does a really great job in their core competencies, in their all the stuff they do, and you and I know they do a lot to to make sure that people understand that it's not about the coach in that they have answers, right? And so what we're doing now, especially what I'm doing now, is getting into a different state of being where I didn't have a clue what state of being I was supposed to be in. If I didn't have the answers, I was okay, it's supposed to be for them. Okay, you know, so that that is a hard thing to teach. It's a hard thing to learn that okay, you are as is kind of mainstream language now, holding the space for someone when they come to you, because they come to you for with some sort of request, whether it's conscious or unconscious, whatever, it's it's absolutely relevant, it's where they are at this age at that time, right? So the kind of coaching that I have learned and that from the horses, my experience with horses, as is about capacity. Where is my capacity at this point for holding space? Where is the client's capacity? My favorite thing to say to all my students is meet the person where they are. And that's what you have to do with a horse because they're so big, right? You better be where they are. Yes, exactly. And this is one of the reasons why they're such good teachers, because for us humans, it kind of takes a bang on the head for us to get it, right? So we may sit with our client, but we're not always aware of, nor do we ask, okay, what are you capable of right now? What's your capacity right now? Where did you just come from? Where are you now? I know we're looking at this series, we're looking at this goal, but where are you right now with that? So we're talking about being in the moment, yeah, right? And what better to check out where you are in the moment than through your body? If you're constricted, you're usually holding your breath. You things can't flow, right? You've heard that go with the flow. Well, no, nothing's flowing when you're like this, right? Yeah, and if you're relaxed, if you're breathing, sitting back, and yes, of course, there's body language and all of that, but this goes beyond that. This goes into an energetic exchange between coach and client that is you mentioned language earlier that just had no language before. What is that space? It's not like nobody experienced it, just we didn't have before it. No, we didn't know. We could tell it when we felt it if we actually took that time and that awareness, right? And so now that we have actually there was a philosopher named Christian De Quincey who talked about something called coaching from intersubjectivity.

Garry Schleifer 12:47

Intersubjectivity. Okay, go

Lisa Murrell 12:48

Basically what it means is that two sentient beings share the same subjective state. So that's like you have yours , we're doing this thing here right now, right? You have your view, perspective, and feelings, those are subjective. I have my view, perspectives, and feelings subjective related, that's mine. But if you notice within the conversation, both in the green room and here, because we had a had a connection for so many years, there's something else there. Like I'm not concerned about what I'm not worried, I'm not anxious, I'm not anything. I feel very comfortable with you. That doesn't mean I'll say anything that makes sense. It just means that I feel very, you know, there's a space between what the two of us have that allow that flow, and we don't know exactly what's gonna come out of it. That's a very scary place for new coaches to be. How many times have you asked yourself the question, oh blank, what am I gonna do now? Right?

Garry Schleifer 13:59

So many times every day. Thank you very much.

The Mind Pretends It Is In Charge

Lisa Murrell 14:02

Yeah, and you just have to check a way that horses deal with that. Yeah, and this is what I learned is to check in with your body of am I tense, am I ready to flee or make stuff up or blank out? Or can I just breathe? And breathing has become so well uh received these days, almost necessary, right? And then your body just kind of is ready to see what else happens, so creating that state is the difference between coaching just with this and listening and hearing and looking at body language.

Garry Schleifer 14:46

Well, quote you, here's what I've learned after decades of coaching with and without horses. We don't make choices with our minds, we make them with our whole system, body, emotions, intuition, values, history, context, everything. And I love this line. The mind just think likes to pretend it's in charge.

Lisa Murrell 15:06

Oh, so true. Hey, like I said, I came from the consulting world. So cognitively is how I you know, we in that's the place for intuition. We feel these things, right? But we don't necessarily do anything else with that. If we're conscious that what we're feeling and intuiting is actually information, then maybe the brain can process it as something valuable that might uh help or add some perspective in this conversation. So if we come in with our mind, gosh knows, Gary, I'm sure you've talked to so many people about what are the best coaching questions? I know in the article. Yes.

Garry Schleifer 15:57

Oh, remember when we started having all those questions? There were books of powerful questions, chapters and chapters in the training on powerful questions. I had sheets of them everywhere.

Lisa Murrell 16:09

Yes, yes, because that's what new coaches want to know. That's coming from here, right? And those books and those lists, and you know, I'm not saying to abandon your mind, you need this, absolutely, but like in the article, I wanted to bridge that gap between oh my god, this is all about feeling and breathing and all of this stuff. What do I actually do? And so that's some of the questions. But one of the things I wanted to make clear, and I think I think it's does in that article, you have to do this with yourself first.

Garry Schleifer 16:51

Right.

Lisa Murrell 16:53

You cannot ask your client to be something other than you're willing to be. And not only that, there's been so much research about electromagnetic fields and connecting and how we connect uh outside of our brain before we connect. We have a neural pathway that says language, language, language. So once we uh we can do that, we can open up another door or another space to possibilities, which is what I think choice is all about.

The Signature Question That Unlocks Options

Garry Schleifer 17:32

That's one of the things I learned from coaching when I first started, and it's it's no surprise that choice became what it was until a couple of years after I started coaching because I just kept thinking it was about possibility and then choice. So it's it's absolutely, you know, and it's held its ground for almost 25 years. Um, I want to ask a little bit more specifically. Um, your signature something about the modality, and I know it's not about horses per se, it's about both, but you ask your signature question is what would you do if this was your horse? What happens in a client when you ask that? And why does it work even for someone who's never like me, rarely been near a horse? I can't say I've never been near a horse, but but I've never been near a horse thinking, What would I do if this were my horse?

Lisa Murrell 18:24

I don't ask them about a horse. I do if I have clients who come to me because they're horse people, or my coach training program, which teaches coaching through working with horses, right? Right. But and those people often have something to do with horses, and if they didn't when they came, they learned because the horses teach us. And so if I'm with a client, I use it as a metaphor in answer to your question. For example, if I um, oh my god, what do I do? My client's saying, you know, there's this, this, this, and this, totally their story, and they're stuck, right? Yeah, I'm not judging them, I'm just going, yeah, I heard this before. Uh and then I say, okay, wait, stop. First, I ask them to breathe. I ask them to notice. Uh is this happening? Is uh are you tense? Are you worried? How do you know you're worried? Where's that showing up in your body? You know, and then I take them through this kind of verbal body scan so that they can kind of get in touch with their body. And then I said, So, and usually I I I have a relationship with my clients, I think it's so critical. So, I I either know if they have a dog or if they have a uh any kind of animal, or if I know that they're very, very close with their partners or whatever. Okay, so what would you do, or even a best friend, or if I know they're incredibly compassionate towards others, I can say, what if somebody was asking you this and it wasn't about you? Not just what if your dog was da-da-da. Just you know, you have to know. Remember what I said? Meet people where they are. Yeah, so you have to do your due diligence, you have to care about join their world as a coach, right? Because that's their language already. So they don't need to learn a new language as they're trying to figure out what the heck's going on in the world. Oh gosh, no, please don't. Right, yeah, but new coaches, this is difficult, Gary. You and I have been doing this a long time.

Garry Schleifer 20:43

Yeah. I you know, and I do something, I guess in hindsight and reflection, I'm doing something like that with every new client. One of my first questions before I get into the whole confidentiality logistics bull is I say, and where are you calling in from? And we get a little banter going on that, and right away you can see that that a builds trust, but also just reduces the, you know, because then we banter about the differences of where we are, and it's usually a weather thing, you know, and stuff like because they're in Orlando and I'm in, you know, minus 30 Celsius with a wind chill factor making it minus 40. So, you know, so that just breaks the ice. Uh-huh. Um, but to to your point, it's it's I'm hearing it also gives me a one point of reference that I know about them, about where they're at, literally.

Lisa Murrell 21:42

Yeah. I feel that first of all, you're really good at that. You know, you you uh I think you have a really great way of making people feel comfortable and building that trust. So uh for some people that's not as easy. But also knowing, and and to your point about, okay, that gives you a point of information, everything is information for a coach. Whether we act on it or not, comes from experience. It's discernment. Is is it why are you even talking? Uh you have to ask those questions before you open your mouth as a coach. Why are you even talking?

Garry Schleifer 22:30

I have an acronym a client taught me, W-A-I-T. Why am I talking? And sometimes when I notice it, I write it down in my little notebook while I'm working with the client to remind me why am I talking?

Lisa Murrell 22:45

It's so true because we're just on automatic. Oh, well, this is what I think about that. Isn't that so valuable in this conversation? But again, new coaches find this very difficult, that that degree of discernment. This is what I think the horses do because of their size. You can't have this override. Your head, your cognitive, you can't have it override.

Garry Schleifer 23:18

Lisa, I'm just picturing somebody standing there telling a horse what to do, and the horse just turns and goes. And inside you're thinking, it's true. Yeah, I know. It's like, are we riding? You know, what's what's going on here? Are you gonna feed me?

Lisa Murrell 23:34

Yeah, it's like a New Yorker cartoon, right?

Relationship In Motion And Take Two Choices

Garry Schleifer 23:37

Yeah. Exactly.

Lisa Murrell 23:40

There was this one woman who came, lovely, lovely, lovely, very feminine and very successful woman. And so one of the things that we do, one of the experiences that I create is a way for after you have developed a relationship, you know the safety protocols, you know all of this stuff, because safety is foremost for me. And um for the horse as well as for the human. And so uh is to get them into movement. I call it uh relationship in motion because that's what we have to do. It what our coaching client, this is not static, this is evolutionary, it's uh it uh it just goes somewhere to choice, right? You can't just sit there. You have you have to create something different. That's how you get unstuck. And so I remember her standing there once and I said, Okay, all right, just ask him to walk over there. Nothing. And I after a moment or two, I said, So what's going on? And she said, Well, he doesn't want to move. And I went, Oh, is that what he wants? Or is that what you're expecting? How do you reconnect through relationship, build that trust so that you can start all over again with what is possible, movement or not? So many people get caught up in that. Oh my god, it's not looking the way I thought it was gonna look. Okay, let's breathe, let's re-establish our own connection to our own body so we can re-establish connection with our client. I love take twos. All right, take two, because so many people feel like they don't have one.

Garry Schleifer 25:40

That's a good point.

Lisa Murrell 25:42

That's what I meant in the article about choices being reversible. You it doesn't have to be the all-end all biggest thing you ever decided in your entire life, and that comes with it such uh a perspective or assumption of risk that the client is just not willing to go to because they don't have the capacity. So that's okay. Yeah, that's fine. But what does feel okay for you? You know, those are those are the kind of things, but again, I feel like this is a departure from I it is an evolution and a departure in the way that coaching started.

Garry Schleifer 26:24

Oh, no kidding. Yeah.

Lisa Murrell 26:27

Yeah. Yeah.

Garry Schleifer 26:30

Lisa, we could talk forever. Unfortunately, we it's time to bring our wonderful interview to an end. What would you like our audience to do as a result of the article in this conversation?

Lisa Murrell 26:42

Well, there is a something that I put together, which is the seven stages of systemic coaching. And that's a PDF. And Garry, I'll send that to you.

Garry Schleifer 26:56

Well, it's available with this recording.

Lisa Murrell 26:58

Yeah. And it's everything I learned because systems is what my whole background. So, how do you look at all the stuff I've been talking about in this? That's part of systems coaching, that's part of systems consulting. So I put this guideline, a guide together for people who want to take a look at actually what do I do with this in a coaching conversation? And so this is the guide that I'm offering.

Garry Schleifer 27:24

Awesome, thank you so much. Very generous. Um, what's the best way to reach you?

Lisa Murrell 27:31

equinealchemy.com. That's the website, and me, Lisa@ equinealchemy.com. And there's a I'm pretty easy to reach. I don't know why. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Garry Schleifer 27:48

But you are, you are, and it's good to see you again. Thank you so much for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode.

Lisa Murrell 27:55

My presence and honor.

Garry Schleifer 27:58

We look forward to seeing you again. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. If you're not a subscriber to choice Magazine and you're watching this video, you can sign up for your free digital issue by scanning the QR code in the top corner of our screen. If you're a listen only mode and you've stopped driving and you're safe and off that treadmill, you can go to choice- online.com and click the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery.