Erika
Espinosa Díaz
Founder of NARÄ Equino
and facilitator of the encounters.
There is a story behind NARÄ
I am Colombian, though over time I have come to feel that I am not quite from here or from there. I am a daughter of the wind, of the mountain, of the sea, of the stars and of the Earth.
More than five years ago a deep search began in me. A search for my being, for my soul, and for that thing which, somewhere inside me, I had always felt existed, even though I did not yet know how to find it.
My road has been full of breaks, of lessons, and of moments when I had to begin again. It has also been a road of discovery, of questions and of encounters that have slowly led me to understand who I am and what I want to bring to this world.
I am a web developer, and for years my work behind a screen let me build a living and keep going. I am deeply grateful for that, because it gave me independence and let me hold my life together. And yet there was a restlessness in me that would not go away: I felt there was something more. That my life could not be only working, meeting obligations and carrying on without listening to what was happening inside me.
When we stop inhabiting ourselves
During a hard stretch of my life, I went through a deep disconnection from myself. Without noticing, I began to take shelter in habits that let me avoid what I was feeling — alcohol among them. My work, too, became a way of staying busy and not looking too far inward.
On the outside, my life went on. I worked, I solved things, I kept going. But inside, something was going out.
There came a point when I felt I was dying while still alive. My body, my eyes and my relationship with myself reflected a sadness and a disconnection I could no longer ignore.
And that emptiness was starting to show in the way I related to the world. Without fully understanding it, I repeated patterns, returned to the same emotional places, and went on living in ways that took me further and further from myself.
Sometimes we keep going out of sheer momentum. We survive, we meet our responsibilities, and we repeat the same ways of thinking, feeling and relating over and over. And yet, deep down, we know something is not right; that although life goes on, we are not living in a way that truly feeds us.
I felt there was something more waiting for me. A life I did not yet know how to inhabit, something inside me longing to be expressed, even if I did not yet know how.
Learning to hold my own sensitivity
I have always been a sensitive person, but for a long time I did not know how to hold that sensitivity. Today I understand that this was one of the great difficulties of my life.
When we do not know how to understand what we feel, how to set limits and how to look after our inner world, our sensitivity can become a source of exhaustion. People, places and experiences can drain us so much that, little by little, we begin to lose touch with ourselves.
Sometimes, when the way we feel and perceive the world is not met with understanding, we end up feeling different, out of place. We can even come to believe there is something wrong with us, especially when we hear again and again that we are too sensitive, that we are exaggerating, that we are crazy.
For a long time, I did not know how to understand what was happening inside me either. I felt deeply, I sensed there was something more, but I still had no tools to recognise my sensitivity, give it a place, and learn to live from it without losing myself along the way.
Slowly I came to understand that my sensitivity was not something to switch off or hide. It was something I needed to learn to listen to, to understand, and to develop with responsibility.
It was not about feeling everything without limits, but about learning to be present without getting lost in what I feel. About recognising when something nourishes me and when it takes me away from myself. About discovering that sensitivity also needs roots, limits, awareness and care.
A door into my inner world
My curiosity about anthropology, about ancestral cultures and about the different ways of understanding existence has been with me all my life. There was a deep restlessness in me to discover what I sensed but could not yet name.
One day an invitation arrived that would mark a before and an after on my road: to take part in a ceremony at Aramara, a sacred place bound to Wixárika culture.
That encounter with the medicine opened a door into my inner world. It was an experience that invited me to look at life from another angle, and it woke questions that, from then on, began to change the way I understood myself and related to the world.
And yet, with time, I understood something essential: a deep experience can open a door, but it cannot walk the road for us.
What we discover in an instant has to be cultivated day by day, through our decisions, our habits and the way we inhabit our own life. Otherwise even a spiritual experience can become one more way of escaping ourselves.
The ceremony opened a door. My road began when I chose to walk through it consciously.
The worth of silence and distance
As my search went on, I understood that I needed to make room for something new. To truly listen to myself, I had to turn down the noise around me and stop living constantly inside the dynamics I already knew.
I felt the need to step away for a while from society as I had lived it until then, from my routines and from many of the references that had been part of my world. I needed silence, space and time to look inward, to understand myself, and to truly tend to my inner ground.
It was a time of parting from the familiar, of stepping out of the rhythms and the ways of living I was used to. It was not about rejecting people or turning my back on the world, but about finding a place where I could hear myself more clearly and recognise what needed to change.
Sometimes, to discover a different way of living, we need to take distance from whatever keeps us repeating the same story.
In that space I could watch my patterns, question old ways of relating, and begin to tell apart what I had learned to repeat from what truly felt right for who I am.
It was also a chance to see how much I needed to learn to hold myself up: to inhabit my emotions, to look after my sensitivity, and to take responsibility for the life I wanted to build.
I understood that silence was not a final answer, but a chance to hear questions that had long been buried under the noise.
And that taking distance could also be a way of returning: returning to myself, to the body, to nature, and to a way of living closer to what felt true.
My road of practice and training
Over these years, my inner search has also taken shape through different practices of cultivation, awareness and connection with life.
Reiki, ShenGong and Qigong are part of this road. Through these practices I have gone deeper into the importance of presence, of listening to the body, of sensitivity, and of cultivating greater coherence between what we feel, what we think and what we do.
I do not see them as a goal reached once and for all, but as practices that invite me to keep learning, observing and tending to my relationship with myself and with my surroundings.
This road also led me to train in horse-assisted therapy and accompaniment, and to qualify as an Equine Assisted Coach (CAAC).
That training let me go deeper into what becomes possible when people and horses meet: a space for observation, learning and self-knowledge, grounded in presence, communication, respect and the wellbeing of the animals.
Today these practices and lessons are part of the essence of NARÄ. Not as formulas that hand out final answers, but as resources that can accompany personal exploration, connection and growth, respecting each person's pace and experience.
My intention is to keep weaving together lived experience, training and conscious practice, to create spaces where sensitivity can find support, where encounters happen through respect, and where horses are recognised as beings of worth in themselves.
What hurt can also be turned into gold. Coming out of trauma is returning to your own essence and living from there: with coherence, with truth, with empathy.
Meeting the horses
In horses I found a different way of coming close to the present. Their sensitivity, the way they perceive, and the way they answer what is happening here and now invited me to listen beyond words.
With them I began to understand that a true encounter does not have to be forced. That presence, respect and listening can open an understanding we cannot always explain.
Horses have invited me to watch my own way of being in the world: how I come close, how I relate, what I communicate even when I say nothing, and how much room I am able to offer so that another being can feel safe.
They have also led me to question the way we humans relate to animals and to nature.
For far too long we have learned to look at other beings in terms of what they can give us, produce, or do for us. But what happens when we stop seeing them as tools and begin to recognise them as sensitive beings, with their own nature, their own needs and their own way of living?
For me, that change of gaze is deeply transforming.
Horses do not need to become anything else in order to have worth. They deserve to be respected, cared for and recognised for who they are. And perhaps, in learning to relate to them from that place, we can also remember something essential about our own humanity.
Their presence has taught me that not everything needs to be directed, explained or controlled. That sometimes we need to learn to watch, to listen, and to let the encounter happen at its own pace.
This is how NARÄ was born
Out of all of this road, NARÄ began to be born.
Not as a final answer, and not from any idea that I had understood it all, but as the expression of a purpose that took shape inside me: to create a place where horses are recognised and cared for as the sensitive beings they are, and where people have the chance to meet themselves through presence and respect for life.
NARÄ comes from a deep calling: to help build a more conscious, more sensitive and more respectful way of relating to horses, to the Earth and to ourselves.
A place where nature reminds us that we are part of something far greater; where we can stop, listen, and recover the bond with what hurry, demands and everyday disconnection so often make us forget.
Here, horses are not tools. They are beings who deserve a dignified life, care and respect. Their presence can accompany us through observation and self-knowledge, without forcing encounters or placing expectations on them.
Through experiences of connection with the horses, practices of presence and different forms of inner cultivation, I want to help more people come close to their own sensitivity, recognise their own resources, and find new ways of relating to themselves and to the world.
I want NARÄ to be a place where sensitivity finds support; where connection is not only an idea but an experience that invites us to be more present; and where respect for life shows up as much in our relationship with the horses as in our everyday decisions.
Because I believe wellbeing is not only about feeling better for a while, but also about learning to build a life in which we can inhabit that wellbeing more consciously.
A road that goes on
Today I understand that NARÄ also reminds me of what I am still learning: that coherence is not a state we arrive at for good, but a practice we choose to cultivate each day.
I am still learning. I am still changing. I am still finding ways to live closer to what feels true.
I do not share this road because I have all the answers, but because I know how much it matters to start asking the questions. I know what it is to feel disconnected, not to understand your own sensitivity, and to keep living out of momentum while something inside you longs for a different life.
I also know that changing the way we live takes time, patience, commitment and a great deal of honesty with ourselves.
So my wish is not to tell anyone how to live, but to create places where we can stop, look at ourselves, and discover new possibilities, with respect for each being's own process.
I believe we do not need to be perfect to begin changing our life. We need honesty to look at ourselves, courage to question ourselves, and patience to tend to what we want to see grow.
A life where sensitivity has room, where nature becomes our teacher again, and where horses are not tools but companions in encounter.
Because when we change the way we look at ourselves, the way we relate to every being who shares this world with us can change too.
NARÄ is part of my story, but it is also a commitment to the life I choose to build.
A bridge between person, horse and nature
Come and live itWrite to us and we will talk it through.