Marie-Pier Dionne realized that her mental health wasn’t well, that she was stuck in unhealthy relationships and that she wasn’t living her best life. This is her story and she is resilient.

Trigger Warning: The Resilience Project provides an open space for people to share their personal experiences. Some content in this podcast may include topics that you may find difficult. The listener’s discretion is advised.

About the Guest:

Hi, my name is Marie-Pier Dionne. I am an aromatherapist, entrepreneur and the founder of Love & Lemons Life Essentials. I also own a French Daycare.  It is my passion to help others live the lives they love, with all their health and happiness!

I originally hail from Rimouski, Québec. I found my second home in the mountains of British Columbia 16 years ago when I moved to Whistler and later Squamish. Currently, I am based out of Castlegar, BC, where I spend my free time in the mountains. I am also passionate about children, art, design, and all the little excitements of life.

My Essential Oil Journey

Having battled anxiety and depression since high school, I got introduced to essential oils a few years ago. I had just experienced a challenging decade. But aromatherapy opened up a whole new unexpected world for me, improving my personal, emotional and professional well-being. This experience turned my life around and sparked my passion for aromatherapy, holistic nutrition, and sustainability. With a newfound love for essential oils, I decided to go to school to deepen my understanding. Today I hold many diplomas; the most recent being in aromatherapy from the West Coast Aromatherapy Institute.

My Values

I am grateful for every opportunity life gave me, and the value all my family and friends bring. Through the course of my journey, I have had very rough rides and tough moments. But if given another chance, I would take the same passage all over again, without changing a thing. For it is that journey which allowed me to grow and become the person that I am today. I am full of dreams, aspirations with many more accomplishments to come. 

I believe…

I believe in the power of life and in dreams coming true.

I believe that everything in nature has a lesson to teach us.

I believe that we can heal our bodies with what Mother Earth gifts us every day.

I believe in an alternative and holistic approach to taking care of our bodies.

I believe that a healthy lifestyle leads to a happy and fulfilled life.

I believe everything unfolds perfectly, just like it is supposed to.

IG: @loveandlemonslifeessentials

FB: @loveandlemonslifeessentials

Web: https://www.loveandlemonslifeessentials.com/

About the Host:

Blair Kaplan Venables is an expert in social media marketing and the president of Blair Kaplan Communications, a British Columbia-based PR agency. She brings fifteen years of experience to her clients, including global wellness, entertainment and lifestyle brands. She is the creator of the Social Media Empowerment Pillars, has helped her customers grow their followers into the tens of thousands in just one month, win integrative marketing awards and more.

USA Today listed Blair as one of the top 10 conscious female leaders in 2022, and Yahoo! listed Blair as a top ten social media expert to watch in 2021. She has spoken on national stages, and her expertise has been featured in media outlets, including Forbes, CBC Radio, Entrepreneur, and Thrive Global. In the summer of 2023, a new show that will be airing on Amazon Prime Video called 'My Story' will showcase Blair's life story. She is the co-host of the Dissecting Success podcast and the Radical Resilience podcast host. Blair is an international bestselling author and has recently published her second book, 'The Global Resilience Project.'  In her free time, you can find Blair growing The Global Resilience Project's community, where users share their stories of overcoming life's most challenging moments.

Learn more about Blair: https://www.blairkaplan.ca/

The Global Resilience Project; https://theglobalresilienceproject.com/

Alana Kaplan is a compassionate mental health professional based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She’s a child and family therapist at a Winnipeg-based community agency, and a yoga teacher. Fueled by advocacy, Alana is known for standing up and speaking out for others. Passionate about de-stigmatizing and normalizing mental health, Alana brings her experience to The Global Resilience Project team, navigating the role one’s mental health plays into telling their story.

Engaging in self-care and growth is what keeps her going and her love for reading, travel, and personal relationships helps foster that. When she’s not working, Alana can often be found on walks, at the yoga studio, or playing with any animal that she comes across.

The Global Resilience Project:  https://theglobalresilienceproject.com/

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trigger warning, the Resilience Project provides an open space for people to share their personal experiences. Some content in this podcast may include topics that you may find difficult, the listeners discretion is advised.

Hello friends, welcome to radical resilience, a weekly show where I learned Kaplan Venables have inspirational conversations with people who have survived life's most challenging times. We all have the ability to be resilient and bounce forward from a difficult experience. And these conversations prove just that, get ready to dive into these life changing moments while strengthening your resilience muscle and getting raw and real. Well, welcome back to another episode of radical resilience. I'm back from my road trip around the US and I'm so excited because I am here today with a friend, a client and a brilliant human. It's me, Blair Kaplan Venables, and I'm here today with Marie Pierre Dion. I practicing her name, she has such a beautiful French accent. So I, I can't wait to dive in with her. But what you should know about her is that she's an aroma therapist, an entrepreneur, the founder of love and lemons Life Essentials, she owns a French daycare. And her passion is to help others live the lives they love with all their health and their happiness. And listeners Friends of the project. Who doesn't want that? So without further ado, I want to welcome you to my friend, Marie Pierre. Hi, hi, Blair. How are you? Good. How are you doing?

Great. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is super exciting.

Yeah, I'm so excited, especially because you have a really great story. And I'm gonna put your bio in the show notes. But I would love for our listeners to get to know you a bit better. You know, we're here to really talk about how you were in a realization that your mental health wasn't well, and that you stayed in an unhealthy relationship. And you wasn't you weren't living your best life. Let's talk about your story. Like, how did you get to where you are today?

Oh, it's been a while a roller coaster, a wild ride. It has all started in high school. I always had this challenge in finding identity and feeling good where I was and finding where I really belong. And from that, from there always fell for the wrong relationship. What was good was not good enough for me. And what wasn't good enough for me, was good. So I always fell in through this rabbit hole of falling into these abusive relationship. Relationships where I was not well. And I moved to BC in 2006, I believe I moved to Whistler and my mental health really, truly was not there. I really had issues with you know, anxiety, depression. Seen doctors, psychologists, I really struggle with relationship again in the time and finding where I truly belong, finding who I was. And I was not happy. I was no good. I thought we said I was always a victim. He was always, you know, down low, there was super high. So it's been a big, big, big roller coaster. I went on strong medication. And I mean, for me. That was like, That was enough for me. You know what I mean? Like some people will do well on them. I did not do very well. Gladly. I had an amazing support around me I was in any other time in Wessler. And the family truly supported me so much through how this and yeah, it was it was challenging time for sure. And I mean like falling into abusive relationship through the whole time. Caring for other more than I was caring for me was a big challenge. But I was not aware Ever, that's the whole part of this whole thing. I never been truly aware of my behaviors, I was not truly aware of how I was feeling. And what was truly going on with me.

Wow. Say thank you so much for sharing that. So it's interesting. Like, I feel like we have a lot of alignment, like, I live with anxiety and depression. And like I before I met, Shane was not in healthy relationships. And I think a lot of it had to do with my, my childhood and my relationship with my dad. But, you know, I really want to acknowledge your vulnerability for sharing this because your story is so unique and special to you. But a lot of people have these experiences in school and they carry them into their adult life. How did you like how did you know you had depression? And like, I want to talk about that. Like, how did you how did you realize or be diagnosed with like a deep depression? is part one and part two is I want to talk about you. Are you still on those meds? And like, What is life like now?

I'm not on medication. It's been almost seven years now. I was not feeling myself on medication. It was really hard on my body and I think it was hard on my mental state more than anything. You know, fainting car accidents. Yeah, it was medication for me as my personal experience was not a positive and helpful thing to do. Right. I lost lots of my friends. I'm not gonna hide this, lots of my friends have left me left me behind. I was judged a lot for who I was. I mean, like anxiety, depression back in the day was not truly seen as it is now a day. You know, lots of judgment, lots of rejection. So that was really really hard for me to cope with all this but also, not knowing what was going on like was like crazy, right? I check some pills, I have those black dots coming through my head often, actually very often, and never really truly spoken about this until now.

That I just got tired, I got sick and tired of not being me. I got sick and tired of being sad. I was sick and tired of not enjoying life and live my best life a fulfilled life and call myself normal. Um until I was able to recognize to recognize where I was to acknowledge and stop being a victim. This is where this switch happened. My last relationship was lots of drugs, alcohol children involved the person was not nice to me at all. Ah, and they always been in those pattern rates and the relationship before a new relationship after I had a miscarriage and after all this and me falling this dark, dark depression Dark Hole. I was like, That's it. That's enough. I deserve better. I deserve to live happy and I deserve to live my best life. I was on sick leave live for probably five months for the job I had. I had my wedding planning at the time. Lots of anxiety. lots lots lots

of your wedding

planner. Yeah. I mean, that was not the least stressful job I could do. But that made me happy. So that's where I found myself being able to live my song backup in creating beautiful things for other people. creating beautiful decor, designing, creating those moments of beauty and happiness for people. And that's what I was like. That's what I want to do. I want to create something beautiful all around for myself, but others say after my, you know, many trippin y'all hospital and miscarriage and that day I decided that you know what, I deserve a good man and I am done, done done. I am done. Being depressed, I am done living this life of victim victim. And I mean, like, telling the truth and understanding the truth and realizing the truth is the hardest. And until you're able to recognize that and accept. And stop being in deny. That's where truly the switch happened for me.

Wow. Thank you, thank you for taking us to the inner, inner darkness you are experiencing and for sharing so openly. And you know, I want to just acknowledge that you've hit you hit a really dark bottom I've experienced a miscarriage to and is unfathomably painful mentally physically like to the heart. And I just can't imagine going through that well, navigating all the other stuff. You're you are navigating. And it's so beautiful that you're actually at that bottom. You saw the light, and you had this realization of what you wanted to create. And I want to talk about that. Because you realize that you want to have this beauty around you which is so beautiful. Because from what it's the duality, you can't have darkness without the light like after darkness comes light. Yeah, absolutely. And you build this beautiful life you moved from the Squamish Whistler area to Castle gar. So if for those of you listening, who have no idea what any of this means she moved from one place in British Columbia to like the opposite side of the province. It's really big. So it was British Columbia. And she like she started a business, a couple new businesses and a new life. And I want to talk about that, like how was that transition for you? Like, why did you choose to go to Castle gar and like, walk us through that because, like, I only know you in your current life. So I'm getting to know you too. And I think your story is so powerful. Because people just stay in that darkness. They stay in those cycles. They don't think that they can do better or deserve better, but they do. So how did you transition out of that old life into where you are now.

So I'm in Squamish. I lost the place I was living into. So that's why I decided when I was ready to go back and do the things I decided to open my French daycare in Squamish. At that time it was in a home had two roommates, two dogs, I had seven families everyday coming in my daycare. I still was running my wedding planning business because I was ready to just shut it down and transition and do something else. Lots of Ealing lots of work. I'm still battling with panic attack. But I had incredible support around me to heal from those past relationships. And just take my power back. And it was not easy there. I went into burnouts through all that. And then the house was for sale. So I was like what am I doing? What am I going to do in the meantime? I met my Whistler crush.

Yeah, Whistler crush. Yes, I

did. And after all those years, we met that one random night that I decided that it was I was done doing veggie, veggie burgers in my house on a Friday night. I was ready to go out into the world. And, you know, socialize and see friends and he was actually with one of my friends from Quebec who actually been living on the coast for you yours. I said I'm gonna take you out for dinner I'm like, no, no, no, never. And here we are here in Castle gar. Um, I mean, like my house was for sale and I was like, What am I going to do and I was like, I'm going to try to find another place to live and I had all these friends trying like, you can run my space you can come live here. I was like, I want to home my house. And I cannot do it here. So I was like, Okay, if I want to stay here, but I want to own a house, I can buy a house or Quebec. So I was looking at houses in Quebec and I was like, you know, you're in that state of like confusion. What am I doing? Like you don't want to live Squamish? Because you've been there for 16 years. All your friends are there it's found me and you'd love it so much. And you know, so we ended up dating and he was visiting the house was living in tune it was like Well, I'm not having a daycare with you for dogs and seven family coming into my living room everyday. So pass a guy came up. We have friends from Well, I had friends from Squamish Western primary agenda were here and I was like, let's do it. So I just came by a house here. Couldn't find a house. We had two weeks as like my life is over. What am I going to do? I was I think I moved my boxes my whole house or two times in in Squamish so we could actually because I had to be out of my house move into my boyfriend's house move back into a trailer and then move Castlegar anyway, so after all this we ended up here and I mean, that's been not easy. I miss the coast I miss my friends, but I have created a beautiful life here and I mean it was not easy either. I fell in deep depression when I moved here doing things that I was not enjoying when he was an issue as well. The house I found a beautiful house, but it was not suitable for a daycare so I had to apply for grants and try to come up with the money I needed to actually build the center. I need to happen I was doing really wills on my front yard like like yes it was like I was screaming jumping was like oh my gosh, this is happening. So for few months, we'll build the daycare outside of the house just outside on the left side here and then hear the Voodoo came back to life from Squamish to cast Sagar. In the meantime, I was with the MLM industry, I was studying my aromatherapy course. And I was like, You know what, I want to do more, I have so much knowledge, and I have so much things that I want to share that I want to do. And I want to create my own brand. And this landed on my lap in 2020. And here, where you are lemons is born

love and lemons. Okay, so I, I really appreciate you sharing this because first of all, a lot of times when we have like these big struggles, it's easy just to stay in that and the fact that you decided you're ready to date you met this man, you moved to somewhere where you can build the life you want. You left your friends and what you knew behind. It's a very scary transition. I just did it. Like I just I just did that too, right? I moved from my home in Pemberton to Kamloops where my husband at least knows people and we have some family but it's lonely. And building two businesses in a new place. One of them is physical in person and one of them is anywhere in the world. Like it's, you know, like no small task. So congratulations. It's been a couple years for you. And I think it's really beautiful. You know, we don't really have too much time to dive into the business but you know, today like maybe today this week, your headspace. Like where are you at now? Like you've now like you've had a couple of bouts of depression throughout your life. You've, you know, been in unhealthy relationships. You've had significant experiences of loss and now you're in Castlebar in your home building this life, where are you like, tell me about your mental state today.

I still struggle and I'm not gonna hide. These are harder than others. My essential oils, it's honestly, a big part of my wellness. Nutrition, doing the things I love and asking for help. Now I do have amazing staff helping me and my daycare. And I will never say it enough like they are. So salutely amazing. And I could not do this without them. They're been, we've been so authentic. I'm so open with them. They know I can struggle. They know everything, the ins and outs. And I think because of that makes us stronger working together. And I know I can rely on them as much as they can rely on me. So Searching for help, I think is one of the biggest thing. My boyfriend homeboy. He has gone through all the hots and downs with me and I don't tell them enough how much I appreciate you.

Let's have him listen to this episode.

Yeah. He's always there helping doing all the things, you know, he knows how stressful it can be to have two businesses but you know, building a business business from scratch and Pandemic as being Whoa, lots of sweat and tears and swears and you know, laughing last night. But the hustle is where brought me here today and I will not be more grateful for my past to have led me where I am today. Yes, yeah. Good. I think speaking the truth too, is one of the biggest thing you know, honest with yourself with others. But speaking the truth, I mean, like asking for help. Again, if you need help, ask for help. If you need support, go get the support you need. Be open with others, you know, like,

ask for help. Be honest. Tell the truth. Yeah.

No. transecting is the biggest part of de sol. Accept your struggle, Accept where you are. Mental health, your mental health may not go anywhere. But it will get better. But you need to be willing to do the work. You need to be willing to accept and recognize where you are at and do the things that makes you feel good. Your job makes you feel like crap. Find something. Sorry, my dogs

are real people. Yeah.

Right. And now they're just like, as soon as they hear something, if so, yeah. So what was I saying?

This actually the transition because I was when you were providing advice. But let's just like hone that in. So because we're going to wrap up this, this chat. And I want people to go to the show notes. Check you out. You know, essential oils have been a big part of your healing. And so and I agree, like I love essential oils for healing. It's really great for my mental health. You know, so SO DIVE INTO dive into her content and what she does, I would love for you to share one final piece of advice for someone who isn't living their best life and they know that they know that they deserve more like what's that one piece of advice?

Your parents to the possibilities for your own eeling journey. Yes,

yes. Be open to the possibilities for your own healing journey. Like things don't have to stay the same.

No, no, no. Say yes to what comes up. I think that was the biggest thing. Fear can hold us back. But if you're willing to step over those fears, do the work, accept and speak your truth. I think a whole new world will open up for you.

Brilliant. I love that. Well I really appreciate you sharing The vulnerable parts of you the beautiful parts of you, where you were where you are, I'm excited for you, you've shared some cool things with me. So I invite everyone to connect with her and follow her on social media. She has some really big things that are going to be happening. And I'm excited to be along that journey with you. And I want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in to another episode of radical resilience. were put on by the global Resilience Project, which is also me. And I do have some help. And what I'm really excited about is our print book, the global Resilience Project book. Right now, it's only available through digital but we are hitting publish on the print version this week. So check Amazon follow us on social media, head to im resilient dot info to submit your story. Stay up to date on our book and just join the community. It is okay to not be okay. You are not alone. You do not have to navigate the hard stuff alone. We are here for you. You got this. Thanks again repair.

You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me. And for everyone. Keep it up.