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

Marketing Director & Son of Co-Founders Shalom Volchok shares his stories

That's me, Shalom, with the ponytail.
Our Burning Desire for Heath Two decades ago my parents listened to their own craving for harmony with life. Without knowing their path or what that even meant they started a seach... Read more.	Reflections as I Find My Way by, Shalom Volchok I'm the youngest of four. When I was growing up we lived in the Ozarks of Missouri. The world was very far away and as a child, it seemed even further. It was just my family, living and working, amidst miles of country woods. We were all home-schooled and my parents worked there too. My mom's health was weak and she was too sensitive for modern medicine. Somewhere out of the midst of this, evolved Blessed Herbs. It was all part of my parents way of life. Our way of life. Growing up, I didn't know anything else. It was hard having such a sensitive mother. It was hard to have our lives shaped around what she needed, around her health. It was hard living a totally alternative lifestyle. One selected by my parents, one I did not understand. Without their perspective, it often made no sense. I remember being lonely and bored. Sure, my brother, sister, and I were involved in the herb company. But not in a way I could ever relate to. It just seemed like labor. Labor I didn't understand. When I graduated from college I came back to work for the summer, with plans to save money and move to Argentina. One day, towards the end of that summer; it was mid-afternoon and I was on I-95 north, driving to Maine for the weekend. I was thinking, just thinking and I started to cry. I hadn't cried since I was a kid. I never cried. At some point in my life I had just bottled it all away, not knowing what to do with it. I cried for an hour while I drove and I realized I loved my mom. Before that, I didn't know if I cared about anyone. I didn't really feel anything. But I could feel her and I remembered how nice she was. I called her from my car and told her. Of course she was happy. I was far from finished though. I also realized I hated my dad and felt totally repressed by his presence. I didn't know this was something I could change inside myself. I thought everything was his fault. (Of course that was not true.) That summer, living at home with my parents, was a very rough time. Yet somehow, at the end of the summer they still wanted me to stay (even my dad!!). I got an apartment in Worcester, MA. It had a one year lease, but I thought: after this I am definitely going. As I write this, it's been almost a year and a half and I'm still here. (4 years now!) In that time we have argued, fought, cried, and laughed. More than once neither of us really knew why I was still working. The line between quitting and getting fired was thin and I usually tested just how thin it really was. Yet something kept us together. It was around the same time I moved into my own apartment, that we started to put together our internal cleansing program. At first it was going to be simple. We were just going to put together some of the formulas we already had in a little brown box. Yet Martha kept revising the formulas. She must have spent 7 or 8 months on the formulas alone! They had to be perfect, everything had to be perfect. Michael, Martha, Todd, and I, we would have at least a weekly meeting. Sitting around my parent's kitchen table: Martha and I robustly discussing how it should be and Michael getting upset, that I wouldn't "just listen". Of course Todd would just sit there and be entertained. (if you know Todd I'm sure that doesn't surprise you!) Once the formulas were done my frustration only increased. I was the graphic designer and Martha was constantly changing something. I just wanted to get it done and sell it! We would come to a meeting and she would have 6 different kinds of Psyllium for us try. With ginger, without ginger, with apple juice, with grape juice, with water it never ended. What herbs tasted good? Which tasted bad? Would people really take this? Would it be too hard? How would they feel? I thought the formulas WERE DONE!! When we finally got to the labels and the box and the manuals: she would change something, I would correct it. She would change it again. I would disagree. We would discuss it. Michael would read it. Todd would read it. I would change it. She would change it. For a year this went on. Amazingly it always seemed to work out in the end and we kept working together. Besides the difficulties of working together, we had daily emotional drama. I always had something new to complain about my childhood. How I couldn't function because of it. I couldn't get a date. I didn't have any friends. I was lost. Eventually, I started working from my apartment and making my own hours. My dad would get upset about paying me. Was I working? Five months ago, when my lease was up in Worcester, I moved to Providence, RI. I had taken up Argentine Tango and I was beginning to have friends that danced in Providence. I started to find and express more of my emotions. I began to share more with people. I was starting to get connected. Through tango I was able to express myself in a non-verbal way. I was able to share what was in me. To communicate with someone in a way I didn't know I could. I hardly realized what I was doing; yet people responded to me in a way they never had before that time. I was beginning to feel the energy that was in me. That it was connected to the energy of the universe. I started to feel it was in everything and everyone. I slowly stopped trying to be someone I was not. I started to accept the way I was and even appreciate it. I could feel other people. I could tell what they were feeling, how they were doing. I liked them. I liked everyone. I started to feel everyone had the same life force in them. I felt my spirit and realized it was far wiser than my mind. Far older. I began to realize I had nothing to prove. I could just be Shalom, that was enough. That was all I could ever be. Then one day, or maybe gradually, it hit me: I could feel because of the way I was raised. It wasn't that I had ever stopped feeling; I had just stopped trusting that feeling. I realized I didn't care what happened in the past. What my childhood was like or if it could have been better. I had parents. I had brothers and a sister. I had a family. I could feel that: they were part of me. I started to look at my parents, to feel what they were now. To feel what they had done. I started to feel Blessed Herbs. I felt why they raised me the way they had. Why they had chosen the lifestyle they had. It was for me. For all of us. I could have had more friends as a child or spent less time bored: but, I am here now. I feel connected to life, and I feel it will lead me, as long I keep trusting. That was how my parents did everything in their lives: based on feel. Of course they made mistakes. Of course it wasn't always easy. But they listened. They built Blessed Herbs on that, and I could feel it now. My parents have been asking me to design a new retail catalog since I graduated. I've never really known what to put in it or how to "sell". I've tried all kinds of ideas based on mainstream marketing and "figuring out" people. Of course my parents rejected them all! (little did I know). But this week it came to me that all I need to do is share what we are. That is what I will try to present in this catalog...oops, website. I have asked Michael to write stories about the past and about Blessed Herbs, which you will find mixed with pictures from the last 18 years. I hope that in my sharing this, you will be able to feel Blessed Herbs. And that by feeling us you will have a greater connection to the products you buy and lives behind them. This website is for my parents and all the work they have put into Blessed Herbs. It's our lives and the life of Blessed Herbs. It's also about finding my voice. My parents have worked constantly since before I was born. It's time for them to rest. Right now my mom is so exhausted she is staying at a natural Korean health clinic in Boston. She expects to be there for at least three months. (she is home and healthy now!) Last weekend we had one more meeting before she started her much needed rest and self-healing. My dad, mom, Todd, and myself where there. Martha, told Todd and me how much confidence she had in our abilities and how grateful she was to have us there to do the work she no longer had the energy to do. It is with her blessing that I have set out to give my parents a rest. In the coming months and years I hope they can work less and play more. They have earned it. Blessed Herbs will continue to grow. It will continue to stand on the same principles that it has for the last 18 years. It seems it is time for me to say these principles in my own words. Blessed Herbs is a company founded on feel and connection with life. We exist to bring this to everyone who comes into contact with Blessed Herbs. Through the beauty of natural healing we wish to help others learn to feel and trust themselves. Although the words may change and the people may change, Blessed Herbs will always strive to keep this pure. If any of you ever want to talk, I'd love to know all of you personally. I am not an herbalist, but I feel and often that is all we need. Enjoy Life, Shalom Volchok