We made this is 2019. Then the World shut down.

In 2019, my son Brian and I were spending a lot of time together researching herbs. We were just beginning the research that would eventually become our book, Be Your Own Shaman, and as you can imagine, there were a lot of conversations about plants, the human body, and what we were seeing in the world around us.

And something about the world just felt...heavy.
There was stress and people seemed tired, anxious, stretched thin. And if I’m being completely true to myself and what I believe, I think we were feeling something in the air.

No, we weren’t predicting a pandemic. We certainly weren’t sitting around saying, “Hey, we better formulate something because the whole world is about to shut down.”  Nothing like that.

But I do believe we pick up on things. I believe there are energies moving around us that we don’t always understand intellectually, but sometimes we feel them anyway.

And Brian and I felt like people needed some calm.
But they also needed enough energy to keep living their lives.

So somewhere in the middle of all that research and all those conversations, we started working on what would become our Mood & Energy Blend.
By the end of 2019, the formula was finished and in production. The first batch arrived at our warehouse in February 2020.
And then the world changed.

Within weeks, fear and uncertainty were everywhere. Businesses closed, families were separated and routines disappeared. Nobody knew what was coming next.  I’ve thought about that timing many times since.

I believe that ideas come to us for a reason.

And I believe that sometimes God lands an idea in your lap and says - Here. Do something with this.  You can act on it or you can ignore it. I’ve always felt that if I don’t act on one of those ideas, it doesn’t necessarily disappear. It just moves along and gets handed to somebody else who will do something with it.

So was Mood & Energy Blend somehow handed to Brian and me because of what was coming?  I don’t know.  But I do know that we were paying attention.

We didn’t formulate Mood & Energy Blend for the pandemic. But I can’t imagine a more appropriate time for it to have arrived.

Looking back at the formula now, I’m reminded of exactly what we were trying to accomplish.  We didn’t want something that made you sleepy in the name of “calm.” And we didn’t want to give an already stressed nervous system another artificial push in the name of “energy.”

We wanted both. Calm the noise and keep your energy.

So, first we started with some beautiful nervous-system herbs.

Holy Basil has long been one of my favorite adaptogens because it sits so comfortably between calm and resilience. It's also known as Tulsi and has been treasured for centuries for helping the body adapt during periods of physical and emotional stress.

Then there’s Lemon Balm, one of those herbs that just feels friendly to me. It’s calming without feeling heavy and has this wonderful traditional relationship with nervous tension, restlessness, digestion and mood.

Skullcap brings in some real old-school nervine herbalism and I always think of Skullcap for the person whose nervous system has simply been asked to do too much for too long. You know that feeling, your body is tired, but your brain apparently didn’t get the memo.

And then we added Water Hyssop, or Bacopa monnieri.
Bacopa has a treasured place in Ayurvedic herbalism surrounding the mind, memory and concentration. I love having it in this formula because sometimes stress doesn’t just make us feel anxious, it makes us feel scattered. You walk into a room and can’t remember why you’re there. You reread the same paragraph three times. Your brain has 100 tabs open and you’re not entirely sure where the music is coming from.
But calming the nervous system was only half of what Brian and I wanted to do.
Because people still have lives to live and needed the energy to do it.

That’s where Rhodiola and Siberian Ginseng, came in. These are two wonderful adaptogenic plants traditionally associated with stamina, resilience and the ability to keep functioning when life is demanding a lot from you.
We weren’t looking for stimulation. We were looking for resilience.
Rhodiola brings a fascinating relationship with physical and mental fatigue, stress and mood, while Siberian Ginseng has a long history surrounding endurance and the ability to adapt when the body is under prolonged demand.

Then we brought in St. John’s Wort, Rosemary and Peppermint.
Most people immediately think “mood” when they hear St. John’s Wort, but traditional herbalists knew a much broader plant with a long history surrounding the nervous system and tissues.
Rosemary and Peppermint bring something different. They’re bright. Aromatic. Awakening. Rosemary has that wonderful old herbal connection to memory, circulation and mental clarity, while Peppermint seems to have an almost immediate way of making everything feel a little fresher.

And this is where the liquid version of Mood & Energy gets especially fun.
In addition to the herbs, the glycerin extract contains the essential oils of Wild Orange Blossom, Rosemary and Peppermint. Open the bottle and those aromatics are right there.

That’s one reason I like having Mood & Energy available two ways.
The capsule tends to be longer lasting. The liquid extract is faster acting.
Some people prefer one and some people like keeping both around depending on what kind of day they’re having.

And then, if you’ve ever actually read the Mood & Energy ingredient list, you may have noticed one final ingredient:
Love. Yep. It’s right there on the label.  We put that one in ourselves.

I’ve never believed herbs are simply raw materials that get measured, encapsulated and put on a shelf. There’s intention behind what we do. There are people growing these plants, harvesting them, formulating them and eventually taking them.

I think what we bring to that process matters.

When I look back at 2019 now, I think about Brian and me surrounded by research for a book we wouldn’t actually release until 4 years later, talking about herbs and the human body, while this other idea kept nudging its way into the conversation.
So we paid attention to the nudge and we started choosing the plants.  Then we made the formula.  And by February 2020, there it was, sitting in our warehouse.
Talk about timing.  It truly was a surreal moment.

Whatever was in the air in 2019, we both felt it. And looking back now, I’m grateful we trusted what we were feeling enough to create something from it.