The Freedom of Balance: A Personal Story about Embracing Opposites
A blog about polarity written by Guusje
It was mainly the inner struggle that drained me.
I fought, without realizing it, against everything soft within me. For most of my life, I had relied on my masculine side: pushing through, performing, not feeling but just going on. It took me far, very far, but it was also exhausting. My body started protesting. My menstruation stopped for months. At first, I thought it was easy, no hassle, no discomfort. Until I realized what it really meant: my body no longer had enough energy to maintain the cycle. It was crying out for softness, for yin, for space.
I began to work on becoming soft again. Not by pushing myself harder—my first instinct—but by learning to find surrender. It was incredible. The more I dared to sink into my feminine energy, the more my body came into balance. The first time I menstruated again, wow, what a wonderful feeling that was. My body had been trying to tell me something, and finally, I listened.
But then a new phase began. As beautiful and freeing as it was to embrace the yin within me, I started rejecting the other side of me. The masculine, which had served me for so long, suddenly became ‘wrong.’ I went overboard with softness, and soon I felt out of balance again. And so, a new inner dance began, a search for equilibrium between the two forces.
That’s what makes life so beautiful. It’s not about rejecting one and embracing the other. It’s about learning to balance, about allowing everything that lives within you. The dark and the light. The yin and the yang. The masculine and the feminine. I have experienced how valuable it is to make space for this, to step into that dance instead of staying in resistance. Fortunately, there are so many beautiful ways to engage with this, to dance with feelings, to let go of emotions, and to be still while life turns everything upside down.
Ecstatic Dance, silent retreats, and cacao ceremonies were tools that helped me restore my inner balance. They gave me the support to dive deep without feeling scared. It was this combination of movement and stillness, of expression and introspection, that kept bringing me back to myself. And that is exactly the journey we wish for everyone.
This process is not only something women go through. It can also be an immense challenge for men to allow softness, to give space to emotions, and to embrace the feminine energy within themselves. In a world that often associates masculine strength with control, determination, and invulnerability, it can be daunting to surrender to feeling and vulnerability. But by not seeing this softness as weakness, but as a power in itself, a deeper and more balanced masculinity emerges. More and more men are taking this journey, and we see how liberating it is when they dare to embrace the yin within themselves. It doesn’t take them further from their masculine essence; it actually brings them closer. From this balance, true strength arises—a strength that doesn’t need to fight but simply is.
Sharon and I share the same story when it comes to this inner journey. It was from our shared experiences that the idea was born: what if we could bring this together in a few days? Create a place where people can experience what it’s like to truly be in balance. To feel the interplay of opposites. Life constantly gives you opportunities to work with the darkness within yourself, to transform the 'not-light' into growth and wisdom. And sometimes, you need a space where you can discover that, without distractions, without judgment.
Equilibrium Festival was born from this journey—a place where you can experience and embrace the balance between opposites. Here, everything is allowed to be: the stillness and the movement, the softness and the strength, the light and the dark. Through dance, breathwork, yoga, and ceremonies, we create a container in which you can feel, release, and return to yourself. This festival is not just an experience; it is a journey that takes you beyond resistance, into the freedom of true balance.