What is EquineFlow?

EquineFlow is a evidence based, horse approved approach for human development coaching and training. Founded by Monique Ravesloot, EquineFlow originally started in 2009 as a program to help people reconnect with inner wisdom and power at a private horse farm called WolfOak in Piedmont, SC, in the US. In 2019 EquineFlow expanded to training and certifying EquineFlow Practitioners at 4 different levels of human development specializations.  In 2020 a virtual service called Interflow was added to serve clients during COVID19 lockdowns. The EquineFlow Approach draws from multiple philosophies and interventions, with an emphasis on experiential, trans-consciousness, somatic, trauma informed, client centered, permission based, play based techniques, that are evidence based, neuroscience backed, and approved by free roaming horses.

Who is it for?

EquineFlow serves humanity. Each practitioner has a specific audience they connect with. At EquineFlow's headquarters at WolfOak in Piedmont, SC, US, we work mainly with C-suite executives. This is also where the first certification trainings took place. 

Certified EquineFlow Practitioners work in their own practices with clients of all socioeconomic backgrounds, such as underprivileged youth in under served communities (and with their -often exhausted- caregivers);  teenagers in need of support;  cult survivors;  women who feel stuck;  children who need help processing trauma; with leaders in education. Each year we add more Certified EquineFlow Practitioners to the team, and are able to serve new demographics and locations. 

Why is it needed?

We found that the biggest hindrance to people reconnecting with their inner power and wisdom is;
1) adverse childhood experience
2) unprocessed life trauma, and/or
3) quality of life issues due to systemic societal inequality.

Life can be difficult and in our complex work we need complete connection to our inner wisdom and power. When we integrate the whole of who we are, we become excellent problem solvers, both on the individual and the collective plane. Humans with unprocessed emotional injury who are disconnected from their inner power and wisdom, are left at the mercy of their own inner loyal soldier who uses strategies like fight, flight, freeze and fawn to address issues. However, in our world, these strategies rarely address the root source, and may back fire, causing powerloss in other people. And on an on the trauma cycle goes.

It’s a bit of a chicken versus egg story. Somewhere in that cycle we have to intervene. That’s where EquineFlow and InterFlow (this is our model without the horse assisted part) comes in. We help you retrieve connection to   your wise and powerful mind through a series of experiential interventions that follows your natural curiosity and flow of life. It helps you sit back and pause, instead of being triggered into reactivity.  It helps you find the answers within, instead of deferring to someone else’s ideology, belief-system or advice. It helps you to allow the solution to emerge when the time is right.

We believe the restoration of connection to inner wisdom and power inoculates us against indoctrination, and manipulation which our society is so rife with. We teach you how to somatically recognize trauma voices, both in yourself and in others, and distinguish it from advanced inner wisdom. This advanced inner wisdom is something everyone has, from troubled teenagers to burned out executives, but it can be difficult to access in times of adversity.

When clients find their way back to their own inner wisdom, it is such an honor to be there to watch the part show up again. When people connect with it, they repair the relationship with it. Then they can begin to work together to let solutions emerge naturally, strategically, adaptively. This allows them to apply the solutions to improving their own life, and life of society at large.

What is the intended outcome?

World wide peace and harmony for all and everything.  For if it doesn't contribute to long term, trans-generational, sustainable, all encompassing wellness for all involved, why direct energy toward it?

Why horses?

In the EquineFlow Approach horses play several roles. Their biggest role is allowing people to immerse in nature and go with the flow of natural life.  When that happens, clients begin to breathe a little easier, relax a little more and give themselves a break from the analyzing/processing/planning/ fixing/worrying/obsessing/fearing thought patterns that are prompted by everyday normal life. When people enter a state of flow, it becomes easier for them to take a position of observer to the world, and all that the world entails, without getting wrapped up in the storms they may face right now.

Each day is different with the horses; sometimes clients observe, sometimes they interact and sometimes all they do is immersing themselves in a herd of free roaming horses to feel what it is like to simply share space without an agenda. The uncanny experience with our horses is that typically what needs to happen, seems to happen naturally. If someone needs confrontation with energies that scares other people way, then often this is what the horses exhibit as well. If someone needs a reminder that they should keep better check of their boundaries for toxic people, then often a horse will disrespect personal space as well. If someone is holding back tears for far too long, then often a horse will seek them out and stand quietly next to them, until the tears find their way out of someone's mind.

Each session includes time for quiet reflection. Every session is different and goes with the flow of what needs to emerge in the client's life, to restore hope, joy and growth.