28 Feb Melrose Mornings for Sunday, March 3 – Interview with the Author!
Melrose Mornings is our free family programming series at the Greenway Amphitheater! Every Sunday from 11-11:30 am, parents and kids are invited to join us for family fun.
ECLECTUALS PRESENTS
🌿 Story Time in the Garden 🌿
On the 1st, 3rd, & 5th Sundays of the Month, the Melrose Trading Post collaborates with Eclectuals Book Market to bring you a lovely outdoor story time in Los Angeles! Join a local children’s author for a reading of their book, along with a talkback session, giveaways, and a gorgeous book cart for children to take and share books.
Meet us at 11 AM at a new location: our redesigned Greenway Main Stage (The Red Section in the Fairfax Quad, in our new food court!)
📣 Calling all parents + kiddos!
MARCH 3 — My Wonderful Body: Living and Thriving with an Autoimmune Disease by Dr. Joy Pillay, read by Ashley Lundy
Greenway Arts Alliance and Eclectuals Book Store are excited to present a special Story Time in the Garden at the Melrose Trading Post.
In commemoration of Autoimmune Disease Awareness Month, we’re hosting a reading of Dr. Joy Pillay’s book, “My Wonderful Body: Living and Thriving with an Autoimmune Disease.” The book will be read by Ashley Lundy, Owner & Chief Pin Curator at Poppy & Monarch.
Dr. Joy Pillay is a bestselling and multi-award-winning author of her debut children’s book, My Wonderful Body: Living and Thriving with an Autoimmune Disease based on her lived experience. As an author, publisher, organizational consultant, and speaker, Dr. Pillay enjoys empowering others to make an enhanced impact through their leadership and believes this can begin at any age, from creative children to corporate clients. During March, Autoimmune Awareness Month and beyond, this mission informs Dr. Pillay’s work as she inspires people to “Lead with Intention, Inspiration and Impact.”™
Ashley Lundy is the Chief Pin Curator and Owner of Poppy + Monarch, an author, communications professional, invisible illness advocate, and speaker. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in March 2018, and since then has used her voice to support and uplift those living with MS and other chronic illnesses.
Dr. Joy Pillay Talks Thriving in Children’s Book, My Wonderful Body: Living and Thriving with an Autoimmune Disease
What does the month of March, Autoimmune Awareness Month, mean to you and what would you like to share with the world about it?
Thriver is a word that comes to me when I think about March, Autoimmune Awareness Month! The month of March means so much to me because it recognizes the millions of us Thrivers living with an autoimmune disease, as well as our supportive community of caretakers, parents, spouses, children, siblings, friends, educators, etc., who are impacted by our autoimmune disease as well. The month of March is a time when we can collectively and intentionally further the conversation about how we can honor our resilience, commit to practicing self-care, continue to support each other as a community and advance critical healing and scientific discovery around autoimmune diseases.
Share with us what drives you in your mission to bring awareness to autoimmune disease.
Wow, what drives me in my mission to bring awareness to autoimmune diseases is wanting to give back to the world through my own lived experience. Upon my own diagnosis and both the physical and emotional pain that ensued, I intentionally decided to “turn my pain into purpose.” I remember thinking, “I don’t want to be forever disillusioned, but instead offer others a forever inspiration.” An inspiration of hope. A hope that is joyful. A hope that is resilient. A hope that THRIVES!
In the spirit of mission, can you share what you enjoy about the Eclectuals Storytime in the Garden at the Melrose Trading Post?
I have always loved books! Reading as a child, and even into adulthood, has always represented moments of play, imagination, creativity, and global exploration. I love how Melrose Trading Post and Eclectuals Storytime in the Garden create what I like to call “moments of community connection” through literacy. It is a time when the community gathers to connect under a big open sky and explore the world together through reading!
As we further explore your mission to bring awareness to autoimmune disease during this month of March and beyond, please share with us what inspired you to write your bestselling and multi-award-winning children’s book, My Wonderful Body: Living and Thriving with an Autoimmune Disease.
I was honored to launch my debut children’s book, My Wonderful Body: Living and Thriving with an Autoimmune Disease, based on my lived experience in the Month of March, Autoimmune Awareness Month. I wrote My Wonderful Body: Living and Thriving with an Autoimmune Disease with a mission of helping to bring awareness, support, and emotional healing to children living with an autoimmune disease, as well as their parents, caregivers, educators, and other individuals who may be a part of their support system who play such an essential role in helping them navigate their physical and emotional journey every day.
Because I wanted to “turn my pain into purpose,” I wanted to communicate to children that they are and can be resilient thrivers while living with an autoimmune disease by exploring the emotional and psychological skill sets in the story and also intentionally discovering them in the interactive journal and curriculum guide included that I loved creating.
In your book, you seek to provide tools and skill sets children can use to help them thrive while living with an autoimmune disease. Having a Doctorate of Education in Educational Psychology and an extensive educational background in the study and practice of leadership, can you please share some of those tools and skill sets?
Wow, this was one of my favorite experiences while writing the book because I was able to further pour my experience of living with an autoimmune disease into My Wonderful Body: Living and Thriving with an Autoimmune Disease by providing research-based tools that encouraged meta cognition in a way children can understand. Some of these tools and skill sets are explored not only in the story but also in the interactive journal and the curriculum guide that is included. These “superpowers,” as I like to sometimes call them, include the power and practice of positive self-talk, practicing resilience, introspective journaling, the therapeutic power of art, as well as freely, authentically, and assertively communicating your feelings to your trusted support system.
These are also powerful tenets of leadership. As an organizational consultant, I always say and am inspired by the powerful reality that “from creative children to corporate clients, leadership can begin at any age.”
What advice would you share with children living with autoimmune diseases, as well as children who aren’t?
This is a pivotal question because it involves a pivotal and powerful moment of mission and impact that children can adopt. As a child who lives with an autoimmune disease, as well as a child who doesn’t, I encourage you to keep being the thriver you are. Never give up, and never stop loving and accepting yourself. In My Wonderful Body: Living and Thriving with an Autoimmune Disease, there is a scene where the main character, living with an autoimmune disease, describes how supportive her classmates are to her. My intent in writing this part of the story was to show how powerful and impactful children who aren’t living with an autoimmune disease can be to children who are and how that support is critical to all of us living with an autoimmune disease. This power and impact can be exercised through our empathy, kindness, and leadership in standing up for one another, beginning in a brickyard playground all the way to boardroom policy.
What would Dr. Joy Pillay share with her inner child, ‘Little Joy’ today?
I would like to thank ‘Little Joy’ for showing me what empathy, strength, creativity, and leadership looked like when I didn’t even know how to describe them. They are a huge part of the joy that sustains me today!