Dr Affie Adagio Life Coach, Family Therapist, Marriage Celebrant, Trainer

2.30 Registration $10

3.00
Dr. Affie Adagio UNAANSW IWD CONVENOR/MC

INTRODUCTION
Valerie Weekes: President UNAANSW

GUEST SPEAKER
Sue Conde: Past President, UNWA

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Theme: Diabesity – Must the discrimination continue?

Professor Lesley Campbell protagonist in the field of research, medicine and service provision for diabetes, who is Professor of Medicine, Director of Diabetes Centre, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, NSW, 2010 will speak for 20mins on DIABESITY and how it affects women, especially indigenous women, causing them to be blamed when they need not be. This valuable research evidence was pioneered together with a colleague and close friend of Professor Lesley Campbell who is visiting from Denmark at present. Professor Berit Heitman who will be present at the Seminar may be convinced perhaps to contribute as a Guest Speaker.

Apart from sharing my delight for the Hungry Jacks advertisement in me previous  post, it has been many months since I have written a post. Was it the shock of losing my close friend Waratah Rose Gillespie to a major stroke on 21.06.2010, or the battle to prevent the Humanist Society of NSW  being  taken over, or just life being too busy. Nevertheless, I remember asking myself over and over – where’s my passion gone? No posts, no sketches, no poetry! I had planned to write about Waratah’s passing away last year, and this June a memorial article and I did neither.

The Hungry Jack’s advertisement with the rabbits gets me laughing every time because of the wonderful actor. She has the most amazing eyes as she looks at the rabbits increasing in numbers. Ad agencies need to make commercials more enjoyable so we watch them instead of running out of the room to do other things when they’re on.

See below for yourself, and if you agree, which I’m sure you will, comment below.

We’ve changed hosting providers. Please let us know in a comment below if something has broken in the move.

We took the opportunity to clean up some old posts and rearrange our filing system. You should be able to find everything with the search feature as well.

In four days we will probably change themes as well.

I was talking to someone who re-commenced smoking after 6 months off cigarettes because of a persistent cough. Despite all the evidence of the long term effects of smoking he claimed he was healthier smoking than not.

Some people never seem to get the QUIT message. But the nature of addiction is to fool ourselves.

Some people quit smoking with the help of nicotine patches or gum. Others attend meetings of NicA to remain smoke-free. There are even therapies with great “quit smoking” results, which I’ll cover in this and future posts.

A proven and guaranteed way to Quit Smoking Today in less than 39 minutes using Rob Mellor’s power-packed Neuro-Linguistic Programming recording.

I don’t usually follow talent shows because the final choice is quite often unexpected. Nevertheless, as I flicked onto one of the American Idol shows with Adam Lambert performing, my hair stood on end at the talent of this man. His voice and performance was iconic. Every time there was a new segment I watched with anticipation and recommended it to others.

He is a star in the making and everyone who watched him with me agreed. We got goosebumps every time he performed. He may have sometimes looked Gothic and with his black nail-polish could be misinterpreted but he was pure talent and the judges even gave him standing ovations. Adam changed his appearance to suit the genre assigned for that particular show, and any mentor supervising their performances could only confirm the enormity of his unique talent.

The Bougainville Women’s Seminar in International Women’s Day Week on Wednesday 11th March in State Parliament House was a success. It was in the Theaterette and attended by over 80 people. However, the Lateline DVD which had worked well at Humanist House previously did not work in the Theaterette.

Waratah Rosemarie Gillespie who had experienced some of the trauma in Bougainville, and wrote a book with sworn statements from Bougainvilleans, spoke explaining those statements some of which were read out by several actors of note such as Lynda Stoner, Andrew Vial, Fran Macpherson, Isobel Kirk, Gillian Levett, Janice Potten, Jonathan Marshall and Sean Foley.

The Chorus of Women in their attractive red outfits sang several meaningful songs to enhance the occasion.

An interview with Dr. Affie Adagio:

“These statements from the people in Bougainville just brought me to tears,” said Dr Affie Adagio, when she announced that the statemnts would be read out publicly. “What happened in Bougainville needs to be known. It was truly awful,” she said.

“I was helping Waratah Rosemarie Gillespie out by typing the sworn statements to go in her book Running with Rebels, behind the lies in Bougainville’s hidden war (Ginibi Productions). The statements are so powerful and so terrible I felt I needed to do something myself so I have organised for them to be read out by actors at the Theaterette in Parliament House at 2pm. on Wednesday 11th March.”

setting foot on the ceiling 3, photo by Thiago Tavares, Maringa, Brazil, semcriatividade.com/tchago, sex addiction

A discussion has evolved from my post on the practice of 13th Stepping – having sex with a person who is more vulnerable than yourself. There have been comments denigrating the 12 Step program, partly blaming 13th stepping. Having worked for over 20 years in the recovery field I can only say that if someone criticises the 12 Step program and fellowship then they are ignorant about how beneficial and lifesaving it is for those who suffer from addiction. There are other programs such as cognitive behavioural therapies which may work for those who commit fully to them but nevertheless larger numbers have benefited from the 12 Step program. Now I will deal with this particular request:

Energy can seem to disappear when motivation becomes low. It is important not to hand over our power to the negative feelings which are also affected by negative associations. Notice how invincible we feel when motivation is high and we then have the energy to reach great achievements. So when motivation waxes and wanes we need to remember that it is a natural occurrence and not allow ourselves to over react one way or the other. Some strategies are listening to relaxing music, writing, reading, dancing, drawing, yoga, walking and many other options including regular medication as required, meeting with people we like, discussing our state with a therapist, mentor or priest. Quite often lack of motivation can create problems in recovery from obsessive compulsions and it becomes extremely hard to stay committed to the program we have chosen. At such times, rather than resort to substance or process abuse to relieve our pain, we can use whatever has worked in the past that results in a healthy outcome.