Michael's Stories | Martha's Stories | Shalom's Stories

President & Co-Founder Michael Volchok shares his stories

Co-Founders: Michael and Martha Volchok
Birth of Blessed Herbs Twenty years ago and struggling to support 4 children, we were asked to pick Mullien and bought groceries with the $30... Read more. I like the woods The thoughts of humankind, the pressures of our small mindedness and the vibrations of our busy lives have not been laid down there... Read more. My first experience with herbs All the infection left his leg and the wound drained naturally, I became a believer... Read more. My personal pain and hope. I have lived most of my life with a deep uneasiness that never allowed me any real lasting peace. Yet, I am finding that I have hope, despite these old and crusted patterns of behavior. Read more. More stories by Michael - Drying our first herbs - Searching for true species - Washing roots - Our first powder machine - Our first liquid extracts - About my wife Martha - Pricing herbs - Advice on buying herbs - Handling & Storing herbs - Where we find our herbs - Environmental Concerns - Where we are today - Go lightly , Go simply.	Sharing my Personal Pain & Hope by, Michael Volchok I feel like I have been in pain most of my life. I remember as early as grade school feeling no one liked me and that I didn't like anyone. I am not sure what my problem was. I did not know what to do and somehow started to isolate myself from the feelings of others. I retreated into my own small world, where I could ignore any sense of rejection. In fact, I started a habit of rejecting people before they had a chance to reject me!! I did make some friends as I was growing up and proceeded to make friends through college; but, I always felt to a greater or lesser degree, that I was on the outside looking in. I still showed up at all the parties, and I still went on dates. But, if I was not in control of every situation I was unable to get comfortable with myself or my surroundings. The first time I felt like I was "in love", I was in college. The girl liked me but did not feel about me the way I felt about her. It was a summer thing and when it was all over I had an ache in my heart that I had never felt before. I looked around at my life and saw many areas of myself that suddenly felt deficient. I felt hollow and shallow and afraid of interacting with people, but now that I could see these things, I wanted to do something about them. I was 21 years old and I remember I was starting to have my first original thoughts. These were thoughts of self-reflection on the state of my behavior, including manners thoughtlessness, selfishness and the realizations of the depth of my shallowness when it came to dealing with other people. It was not that I did not really like other people but that I had just not really given much thought to anyone outside myself. I came to see that I was lonely, lost and confused. I have since found this was not such an unusual state of affairs and that many (maybe most) people eventually come to see that they are living their lives in such a way as to ignore what is really going on right in front of them. All the while totally caught up with their own inner drama of life, by only seeing things from a very narrow perspective. After college I moved to California and one night on a San Francisco beach I wrote in the sand, "Who am I?" It was really the beginning of my search for meaning in life and for my own true self. Whatever that meant! In the years since writing in the sand, my search has taken me through a commune with a quasi-non descript spiritual community, practicing Judaism, practicing Catholicism, practicing Asceticism, and practicing Buddism. I have practiced and practiced. Always trying to be a better person, someone who looks out for others beside just himself. But this has always been a hard thing for me to do. I have been happily married for thirty years and have four children. I enjoyed being a Father when my children were younger. However, as they got older it became harder for me to relate to them as people, just as it had when I was younger. I have lived most of my life trying to control my environment. Always with some sense of impending doom or at the very least a deep uneasiness that never allowed me any real lasting peace. Since my children have all left the nest, I have had to watch, more closely, my behavior and my reactions to what takes place in my life. I have seen that my up and down personality, the unending restlessness, and my personal anxiety have not only kept me from being at my best; but, also have contributed to my wife's illnesses. Just when things would calm down, I would reject the peace that I worked or prayed so hard to come to, only to find myself agitated again, which fed into my wife's already weak condition. My love for Martha has always given me the inspiration to try to better myself, to correct my behavior and to see things as they are. Not through my own fogged lenses of reality. Even for all the years of meditation and prayer, it has been my caring for her that has really been my reason for coming face to face with what sometimes seems like a life-long depression of sorts. A struggle between the peaceful goodness that was actually always present inside of me, and some inner disturbance I have become so accustomed to that I could not put it down for the life of me. I have sincerely worked hard during the course of these past thirty-five years to shake my inner feelings of desperation and the dull ache I felt inside. Maybe this will be a life long struggle; but, more and more I get glimpses of myself at peace. More often I am able to step aside from my feelings of inadequacy and loneliness and I find myself accepting, forgiving and being satisfied with the present moment. I am finding that I have hope, despite these old and crusted patterns of behavior, that play like tired records looping and relooping through my brain. Through the struggle of years of a hard labor of love, both toward myself and my wife, I have begun to see a crack in my armor. A letting go, of God only knows what, that I have been clinging to from the very old days of my youth when I formed these protective layers from others. Today I have a new found recommitment to a daily practice of meditation. Just sitting and breathing, I watch these old patterns come and just let them go with my breath and by repeating the names of God throughout the process. In doing this I have begun to notice a more gentle space inside where the old pain does not seem to have taken root. I wish to permit myself more than ever to accept this as something new and as a gift from my inner greater self to the aching Michael I have become accustomed to all these years. It is fruit, I believe, that has been borne of perserverence and dedication to wanting to live by the principles of the Spirit. I have waited a long time to feel this feeling of an inner freedom, and I glady accept the opportunity to relax into it. It is still a work, but I can notice an acceptance of self and moments that the inner anguish I have nursed all these years is waning. I am grateful. I do not want to forget to give thanks for the good things in my life. I want to, once and for all, acknowlege the good I find in myself. May my pain be turned into a song of joy. May my joy be turned into a song of love. May I never forget myself May I never forget others.