A Tulisan Woman: Diwien Hartono
As you inhale the fragrance of thyme, she gently places her palms towards your head or occasionally on your back. Sometimes, she exerts pressure towards your skin with her index finger or thumb as she quietly listens to you talk. Other times, she will leave you to peacefully sleep. As you lay on the bed wondering what she does to your body as she move from one side to the next from finger to toe. Your only assurance is trusting she will help you tweak you back to the acquired balance your body is seeking for.
Only two levels above the Tulisan Darmawangsa Square store, Diwien Hartono, often awaits for our individual presence on a yellow chair in a practice called True Nature Holistic Healing. Often you will see her seated comfortably barefooted with her legs up sideways on the cushion.
She smiles and welcomes you in as if welcoming a guest to her own home.
As she walks you towards the therapy room, she offers a glass of water on every visit. “Dehydration is the cause of most illness,” she often says. Water as she explains has remarkable benefits in eliminating toxin and curing the most troublesome ailments.
But water itself is not enough. Before you start, she asks a number of questions regarding your perceived illness. She starts off by explaining the nature of this holistic practice. Holistic therapy stem from an understanding if imbalances occur in the human body, the wholeness of the person – physical, emotional, or spiritual – has a direct effect on the well-being. One aspect cannot function without the other.
“We are made up of four elements. The body, emotion and mind, psychic, and spirit,” Diwien thoroughly shares. As anyone often says, your body sickness are a manifestation of troubled emotion, mind, or psychic. Spirit is an aspect of the self which is untouchable. It bellies from your own relations to a higher power. Whereas the three foremost factors are controllable daily.
Although understanding one’s emotions is like opening layers of an onion. The traumatic events or emotional hurdles we encounter and the kinds we repress will translate instead into a tangible form of distinct pain.
It was by choice she decided to dedicated her life now to people who suffer from bringing a balance in their body. As a therapist, she had learned the hard way of battling with her own conflicted mind and body throughout the years of facing asthma and allergies. Her past job working in sales in an IT company were high strung and gave her numerous head and body aches.
By fate she met with Reza Gunawan, owner of the holistic practice, who has for years delved into the world of self-healing, where Diwien was determined to learn to take herself out of her misery of aches and give herself a peace of mind.
A high level of self-awareness is needed to bring yourself to its wholesome condition. Something not everyone is determined to understand. It takes time and practice in understanding your core purpose and expression. Indonesia and Asian culture in general are not accustomed in expressing ourselves freely. “I can only understand people from what I see and hear from them,” Diwien affirms, “I can only help if the person is willing to cooperate.” Which is the challenge she faces. She believes, however, in process. It takes time to conquer your limiting beliefs.
There is a written philosophy in the True Nature blog which goes: I am at most responsible in nurturing, caring, and healing the health, balance, and happiness of my own life. This becomes the aim for her to ensure everyone she encounter can have ownership to their own mishaps and live with a healthier well-being.
She has been a comfortable confidant for the Tulisan team, as most team member has sought support from her on a weekly basis. Tulisan itself has become a mirror to her self-healing journey. She has been in love with the Tulisan collection from the get go, but one story has lingered in her heart, “Anima reflects a lot about my lifestory.”
Anima revolves around the pull of the subconscious and our projected reality. For Diwien, she has found herself in The Oracle of the Catfish, one of the central characters in Anima which dabbles into the world of divinations and tampers with both tangible and intangible world. Coincidently, Oracle was the name of the company she previously worked in.
Visible similarities are even experienced through the five kingdoms of Anima – Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and Air – where she currently studying the healing practice with essential oils of those five elements.
As she constantly becomes a foundation for us who were on the road to contentment, I was curious and had asked her how she keeps herself going forward positively. To my surprise, she explained she is not for the concept of positive self-affirmation.
“Affirmation only last for a short while. You need to accept every negative aspect of your life before you can fully embrace the positive aspects,” She concludes.
Text by Athina Ibrahim
Photography by Michał Górzyński