TRANSFORMING THE PRESENCING SELF

A Threefold Developmental Movement

Abstract

This article introduces a new phenomenological movement that deepens and transforms the presencing self through developmental shifts in awareness and being. Central to this inquiry is the mesa-turn, an embodied ontological shift that extends Robert Kegan’s subject-object theory of development. Whereas Kegan’s meta-shift emphasizes transformation in one’s self understanding through cognitive decentering and perspectival awareness, the mesa-turn invites practitioners into reclaiming deeper levels of ontological embodiment as a basis for presencing mastery. Drawing from Dynamic Presencing (DP) (Gunnlaugson, 2020-2025), this inward reorientation cultivates direct, somatic contact with the presencing self. This deepening unfolds through the Threefold Developmental Movement: 1) the meta-shift, which uncovers the presencing self through a perspective-taking process; 2) the mesa-turn, which re-roots practitioners in the embodied depths of their presencing nature; and 3) unitive resting, which anchors them in a deeper integrative state of being presence. Together, these three movements reconfigure one’s relationship with their presencing self by guiding a progression from dis-identification (meta-shift) to embodied re-identification (mesa-turn) to a re-configured, integrative identification within presence itself (unitive resting). This framework opens new developmental horizons for presencing leaders, coaches, and practitioners by shifting presencing beyond a way of knowing into a generative and sustained way of being.