In this illuminating episode of Age Well, Dr. Sophie Shotter and co-host Fiona Mattesini engage in a rich discussion with Tracey Tee—creator of Moms on Mushrooms (M.O.M.)—about the therapeutic potential of psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, for mental health and emotional well-being. Tracey shares how her personal experience with microdosing mushrooms led to life-changing insights and healing, and explains why she launched a supportive global community devoted to teaching mothers how to work with psilocybin responsibly.
Sophie and Fiona also provide valuable scientific context about how psilocybin works within the brain, its capacity to create new neural pathways (neuroplasticity), and the crucial importance of “set and setting” for a meaningful psychedelic experience.
Please Note: This episode is for informational purposes only. The use of psilocybin in most parts of the world (including the UK) is still classified as illegal or restricted, and the conversation here does not constitute medical advice.
Read Transcript
[00:00:00] Fiona Mattesini: This is Age Well with Dr. Sophie Shotter and in this episode we're talking to Tracey Tee from Moms on Mushrooms about the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics, mostly the role of psilocybin which can be found in so called magic mushrooms. And before you tune out and think this might be some weird hocus pocus stuff, just to say there is now very serious data emerging around what psilocybin can do for mental health.
So much so that the NHS is undergoing trials at King's College, London. Have a listen to these three clips.
[00:00:43] Tracey Tee: We have science that backs up massive breakthroughs, whether it's from like alcoholism, PTSD. treatment resistant depressive disorder. I mean, the list goes on and on that people are, even after one journey, are able to make profound changes in their lives.
Alcohol and caffeine are way more addictive than psilocybin. Psilocybin is actually anti addictive. It actually helps decrease addiction. I think that's likely where a lot of the true power lies in psychedelics.
[00:01:15] Fiona Mattesini: Despite this, here in the UK, and in most other parts of the world, psilocybin, along with LSD, which we briefly reference in this episode, is classified as a Schedule 1 drug, i.e. it's illegal, and officially defined as, quote, having no therapeutic benefit. Advocacy groups are UK, but it appears the government has no plans to review or change the status. For more background, magic mushrooms are a naturally occurring psychedelic plant that contains psilocybin. Taken in large doses, psychedelics will cause a person to hallucinate, seeing or hearing things that don't exist or are distorted.
In smaller doses, which we'll mostly be talking about here, they tend to work in a very different way. For background, in case you aren't aware, microdosing is now a huge space. There are many, many podcasts, so much publicity. There are meetups, retreats. Online communities. On that note, there are also people jumping on the bandwagon and it's essential people apply a bit of fact checking and rigor on anything they can jump on.
Please do note that my personal experience isn't necessarily Dr. Sophie's experience, nor does she necessarily agree with me. Dr. Sophie is not advocating the use of any illegal substances. Please remember this podcast is for information and entertainment purposes only with that in mind. Let's get into the show.
So today's guest is Tracey Tee, founder of Mums on Mushrooms, an online community that offers a guided micro dosing course. Following Tracey's own personal experience with mushrooms, she's now on a mission to bust some myths and destigmatize psychedelics. Rewind a few years back, however, and Tracey's life was quite different.
She was in LA working the improv comedy scene and then became one half of the national touring live comedy show, The Pump and Dump Show, with her best friend, Shayna. This turned into a highly successful multimedia company, Band of Mothers Media, Where the pair toured and sold out some of America's most prestigious venues.
She also co created a podcast co produced by Warner as well as a social media app and e commerce site, and eventually two additional cast members for Pump and Dump. But then in 2018, age 40, Tracey began to experience a range of massive personal and spiritual shifts. And this led her on a path to microdosing psychedelics or what we might call plant medicine.
Eventually in 2022, she launched Moms on Mushrooms, a community so successful that it's been featured amongst other places on Good Morning America, a huge US TV show in Tracey's own words. I get really frustrated when people say, Oh, mushrooms are just mommy's little helper. That's not what microdosing is about.
Microdosing is about mommy being present and aware and showing up maybe for the first time ever. To find out more, head to allthews. momsonmushrooms. com and please follow Tracey on Insta at Mums on Mushrooms Official. Just to add, please spell Mums, M O M S, the American way, not the British way. Tracey, welcome to Age Well.And I think, Sophie, let's head
[00:04:41] Dr. Sophie Shotter: over to you for the first of our questions. I'm so looking forward to this conversation, Tracey. And we know that you've told. This story dozens of times already, but I also know my audience will really want to know how did you go from touring a comedy show across the U. S.
to where you are now and including appearing on some of the hugest TV shows and podcasts in the world and and amassing a really great Instagram following as well. I'd love to hear your journey.
[00:05:08] Tracey Tee: Yeah, thank you for asking. No, it is quite a journey and there's no one more surprised than me that I'm sitting here in my now late 40s talking about magic mushrooms.
Never would have seen this coming in a million years. So. We have the COVID lockdowns to thank for everything. We did have a really amazing, beautiful comedy show. It was for mothers. So I've been in the mommasphere for over 10 years now, just really gathering moms together and. The show was about laughing about the things we had in common as parents.
And one really beautiful component of doing the show and touring the country, crisscrossing it back and forth for years and years and years was listening to the stories of mothers after we did the show. I mean, a lot of it was standing and taking photos with women and just hearing their stories and Shana and I both became acutely aware of a deep.
Very common theme of pain and anxiety and overwhelm within mothers, no matter where we were, whether it was New York City, Los Angeles, or in the heart of Iowa, the stories were generally the same. So when 2020 hit and the lockdown started, we ended up having to cancel. Almost 100 shows for the year of 2020.
At that point, we had two new casts that one out of LA, one out of Chicago that was going to begin to tour. Shane and I were very, very tired and it was time to pass the torch. So we had gotten those casts up and running. We were days away from signing an off Broadway contract. Where the pump and dump show is going to be in New York city, um, venue to Tony award winning producers.
We're, we're backing it up. And then when things started shutting down, we just watched a 10 year old business slip through our fingers like sand. And. Anyone who owns their own business knows that it is very much like a limb of your body, even so far to say a child, right? Like you pour everything into your, your own business.
And so the grief of watching your business fail when it wasn't your fault, like we didn't do anything wrong, everything was going so well was palpable. And that coupled with just the existential. Overwhelm of navigating zoom school for my little kid and explaining that she can't go to school because there's a pandemic.
It was all just a lot for both of us. And like you had said, Fiona, I had been on this spiritual path, really. Like the day I turned 40 and I think this is very common for a lot of women. Like you turn 40 and all of a sudden those big questions just start to enter. Like, who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing?
What does this all mean? So I had been really exploring that. And I had been exploring plant medicine for many years prior to actually trying it. You know, I was fascinated by ayahuasca. I've always loved functional mushrooms. And so the whole thing intrigued me. I loved Michael Pollan's book and then just thought, well, there's never.
Like I can never do this, right? Like I'm a mom, like there's no way. And I'd never done drugs before. Like I'd never done anything. And so it really was the same friend, Shana that summer, she called me up and she said, look, a bunch of us moms are going to go camping up in Boulder by a lake and you're coming and you're gonna put on your big girl pants and you're going to take some shrooms.
And I was like, okay. And when I was driving up there, I thought, you know what, if this is the experience, my soul is telling me it is, then there might be something here. And then we ended up having this beautiful night out in the summer, Colorado summer. There's nothing like it. And I saw like all the symbols ever created.
I felt like I just. saw God and understood that God was with me and everywhere. I felt this insane connection to nature, like all the cliches and went to bed, smiling from ear to ear, just in deep gratitude and love. Shane and I were just talking late into the night about how much we love our husbands and how much we love our family and our kids.
And like, there was no bad things that happened. And when I woke up the next day, I was like, I'm hooked. And I should also add that when I was 41, I had a full hysterectomy. So all the parts were taken that launched me into surgical menopause. So, you know, I walked into the hospital with hormones and I left with hot flashes.
It happens that quickly. And so I had been put wisely by my functional medicine doctor on Wellbutrin to navigate. That really sudden shift. And I'm so grateful because I don't know what that would have done to me in terms of mood and stabilization. Had I not had that help from Wellbutrin, but I, I'm not, like I said, I'm not a drug person that I'm, I'm not even really a pharmaceutical person.
So I. I was like, well, okay, this is fine, but when do I stop? And what do I look like after I stopped? So microdosing had always been this question mark as well. And I talked to the same doctor and said, you know, I'm thinking about trying microdosing. And she said, you should, I just can't tell you anything about it.
After that fateful camping trip, I just decided to try microdosing and it changed my life within two weeks. I felt like all the dots connect. In a way that I had been searching for many years, I felt myself soften. And then I microdosed five days on and two days off for nine straight months. Like I didn't really stop.
And I just felt wave after wave of change of healing. And then the next year, almost a year to the week that I went camping, my family was up in the mountains with our daughter. She was nine at the time and our 18 year old niece. And it was 11 a. m. on a Monday morning and we got hit by a drunk driver, flew through a guardrail and 30 feet in the air and landed in a ditch in the mountains outside Aspen, Colorado,
[00:11:21] Fiona Mattesini: and had
[00:11:21] Tracey Tee: to pull our kids out of a car.
We were all very injured. And the trauma of that was, as you can imagine, horrible, but I felt it leaving my body. Like I felt myself getting over it like in real time. And I think it was because I was microdosing.
[00:11:39] Fiona Mattesini: One word that you've used, softening, really resonates for me. I mean, if I can tell you about my experience with psilocybin and then I think maybe you can put some context around it because I think unless you've microdosed, it's very hard to understand.
And I would imagine that you can articulate it better than maybe I can. So firstly, for me, within a month of taking psilocybin, two things happened that I never thought would happen and I never thought would happen so easily. One is that I completely transformed my relationship with alcohol. I used to drink every night.
I didn't get drunk. But I did drink nightly. And if this doesn't sound weird now, it's like I've almost forgotten alcohol exists. That's how little it is in my psyche. And I do still drink, but only when I really fancy a nice glass of something. And that might be once or twice a month. And it's been so effortless.
I don't think about it. I've also kind of ties with an extremely toxic member of my family. And this has been like years and years in the making. And I did it in a way that felt. Again, just effortless without any anger, without any recrimination. Those two things feel for me like small miracles. And I just wondered what your thoughts might be on, on, on that.
[00:12:43] Tracey Tee: Oh my gosh. A hundred percent. Yeah. Alcohol and any substance that people feel like they have a tie to. Yeah. Something about microdosing the way I describe it in non doctor terms, cause I'm not a doctor or a scientist is I feel like your body. And your brain and your heart all come in alignment. Like, imagine just like a straight line connecting like your stomach, your heart and your head and they all start talking to each other.
And so your head finally hears messages that your body has probably been trying to send you for years. So alcohol is one of those things where most of us, again, like you reach a certain age and you're just like. I love it, but also hate it, right? Like it doesn't do anything for me. It does the trick, right?
It definitely helps you wind down, but the after effects, the toxicity load, the sugar, none of it's good. We all know that. But it's hard to quit, and we live in cultures where it's everywhere, and it's so easy to consume, but your body starts sending messages that your head hears, and I think that the mushrooms just help open up that pathway.
And so you're acutely aware of not only does it not feel good, but you're just like, it doesn't feel good. And I actually want to change. And for some reason it just helps you get over that hump. So yeah, I think, and I've heard that in our community with people from alcohol, sugar, smoking, caffeine, I just gave up coffee effortlessly.
[00:14:12] Fiona Mattesini: And
[00:14:14] Tracey Tee: so now I drink it, but I, and the same with alcohol, I still drink, I don't have judgment. I just know that it doesn't serve me the way it ever did. But like, I know my why, so now it's much more like, okay, I know I'm doing this and it's not like I need to do it. And there's a huge difference there.
[00:14:30] Fiona Mattesini: Yeah.
I love that. I know my why. Sophie, can I just throw to you, what is happening physiologically when we take psilocybin? Is it the fact that mushrooms are, which I think it is because, um, Trace has just said that they're rewiring our pathways.
[00:14:44] Dr. Sophie Shotter: Yeah, I think it's so interesting because we've talked a lot about.
rewiring pathways in other ways. And I find the overlap between some meditative techniques and psychedelics, absolutely fascinating. But yeah, obviously when we're doing meditation, we're creating chemicals in ourselves. But when we take psychedelics, you're also overcoming some of the natural resistance that many of us have from, as Tracey describes so clearly, that initial place of slight trepidation and fear.
But essentially, when we take psilocybin, our gut, our intestines converts it into psilocin, which is a chemical with the psychoactive properties. This is then absorbed into the bloodstream and enters the brain, and it uses the same receptors. As serotonin, which is our body's feel good hormone and serotonin is so important for multiple bodily functions, sleep, sexual desire, and also for maintaining kind of positive psychological states like happiness, satisfaction, optimism, gratitude.
And people with depression or anxiety often have low levels of serotonin and actually many antidepressant drugs are targeted at. to raise the levels of serotonin. And people with post traumatic stress disorder also have low levels of serotonin. People with cluster headaches, eating disorders like anorexia, smoking, addiction and substance abuse, all of these are associated with low serotonin.
So for these people, treatments Do involve these, what we called SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Antidepressants. Yeah, exactly. Most of the commonly used ones that people will have heard of, and these boost the levels of serotonin available to our brain cells, but it can take weeks for an improvement and there can be side effects and not everyone likes being on them.
Now. I'm not anti them for when they're needed. They one thing I think probably most of you know about me by now is that I absolutely obviously believe Western medicine has its place. I'm a medical doctor, but there are also other things where I think we need to look towards more alternative pathways and With antidepressants, the thing that so many people describe is that, yes, their lows are less low, but they also lose the highs and that their mood is much more stable.
And of course, that's crucial if you are in a state of acute crisis, but it's not necessarily a great way to feel for the rest of your life. And I also think actually many women coming on to what Tracey was talking about with 40s and perimenopause, the most commonly prescribed medication to women starting to experience psychological changes in that decade is antidepressants.
It's not hormones. So when it comes to psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD, scientists can see those changes in our brain neuron connectivity. in a lab setting within 30 minutes. So you go from antidepressants, which can take months to something which can do it in 30 minutes. And this has all been tested by a particular, a pharmacologist called Brian Roth, and he's a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the university of North Carolina.
So basically evidence shows that when someone's on psilocybin, you see an increase in. the overall connectivity between different areas of the brain that don't normally communicate well together. And we can also see the opposite of that, that local networks in the brain that normally interact with each other quite a bit suddenly might communicate less.
It can create this kind of Disorganized brain, a breaking down of boundaries between the auditory, visual, our executive functions, and the sense of self actions that, that our mind has. It's a sort of a, a creating of a state of altered consciousness. And while that To some people sounds like a negative thing.
It's this disorganization that can also be so therapeutic. And as an example of that, depressed people are often continually self critical. They keep ruminating, going over the same negative, anxious, or fearful thoughts, and psychedelics can disrupt that. So critical thoughts can become easier to control and.
Thinking becomes more flexible. And that's why potentially psychedelics are being seen as an effective possible treatment for depression. There's also evidence from researchers that psychedelic drugs can help neurons in the brain to sprout new dendrites. So imagine your. a main neuron being like a thick branch of a tree and the dendrites are the little twigs that come off that branch.
And that helps to increase communication between different cells. So you're increasing what's known as neuroplasticity. And while SSRIs can also increase that, it doesn't increase brain connectivity or improve overall wellbeing as much as psilocybin can.
[00:19:59] Tracey Tee: I have read a million books and listened to a million podcasts, including Andrew Huberman and Sophie.
That was the best description, of how it works ever. Thank you so much for just taking the time. Thank you, Tracey. That was amazing.
[00:20:15] Dr. Sophie Shotter: She's a superstar. She's a superstar. You're
[00:20:19] Tracey Tee: a hundred percent.
[00:20:20] Dr. Sophie Shotter: Next question to you, Tracey. Psychedelic tea ceremonies are. Such an inherent part of so many indigenous cultures.
And many people listening might have heard of ayahuasca tea ceremonies, which most commonly take place in South America. And there's also one South American tribe where taking mushrooms is legal because it's part of their designated cultural heritage. And I know in Michael Pollan's book, he talks a lot.
So the book for anyone who's not read it is called How to Change Your Mind. And there's also a brilliant Netflix series of the same title based on the book. He talks about the critical importance of set and setting. Can you bring that to life a little bit for us?
[00:21:01] Tracey Tee: Gosh, yeah. Set and setting. I mean, I think that is probably the number one thing that everyone agrees on in the scientific world, that how and where and why you take a psychedelic.
will absolutely influence the final outcome and bridging that over to our original brothers and sisters who have been working with this medicine for decades, if not centuries, the deep tradition of, of ceremony and intention proves that set in setting is inherent in these medicines because that's what ceremony is set in setting really just says like, where are you taking it?
Making sure that you're setting yourself up to explore an altered state of consciousness, an environment that is safe, that feels comfortable, that, in my personal opinion, you should have someone else there to guide you. And this is really pertaining mostly to a large dose or a macro dose of psychedelics.
So that is your setting and that can go anywhere from the decor in the room to the music that is played And we know that music actually has a really plays a really big part in a large dose journey or a ceremony And then set is like what is your mindset? How are you? How are you walking into this? Are you prepared?
Have you thought about it? Do you have you empowered yourself with knowledge about the medicine that you're taking? Are you open to? receive The experience that will be shown to you and all of that is critically important for a macro dose for a large dose when you bring it into a micro dose, I really talk about more about intention because setting, especially from my point of view from the Western, the busy Western mother who is, you know, the majority of our community setting may very well be in your kitchen, taking your microdose before you take the kids to school.
And I want to preface that by saying you can take the kids to school because when you take a microdose, you're not high it's sub perceptual or sub hallucinogenic. There's a bunch of different terms that have come out for it now, but you're not feeling the full body hallucinogenic altered state that you do in a larger dose.
So setting to me isn't as important when microdosing as set, which is why are you doing this? And in our Western culture, and you spoke so well about SSRIs, and they are important. They are, they can be life changing for people when the lows are so low, you can't even get up to stasis. It's critical. It's.
Groundbreaking medicine, but we are have gotten very used to passivity when it comes to medicine, right? Like we take an Advil and we sit back and we wait for our headache to go away. We drink a cup of coffee. We wait for ourselves to feel that boost of energy. We take an SSRI. We wait for the bad feelings to sort of.
Fade into the background and with microdosing, the set part is really understanding that you're coming to this medicine with the intention to contribute to the process, and that you are not gonna sit back and wait for your life to change that the mushrooms aren't gonna do that for you. They might help you and because it is.
activating your serotonin levels. It is growing those new dendrites. It's creating new ski slopes down the mountain. As I like to say, you have to understand why you're doing it. And so that really is what I feel about set and setting from a microdosing standpoint.
[00:24:44] Fiona Mattesini: I think as well, I mean, from my research, they do have a very strong safety profile.
However, we have to obviously state that it would be easy to take a large dose, get high, and not necessarily have the experience that you are expecting. And now we can talk about macro dosing in a moment. In fact, I've got a question for you on that further down, but how important is it? Do you feel to have a friend or a guide or a mentor to help you learn where those lines of demarcation are?
And how to use plant medicine wisely, because when it comes to any locked in trauma, in your words from a previous podcast that you did, you might quote, get the uglies out, which is a great expression, by the way.
[00:25:25] Tracey Tee: Okay. So here's what I think. I think a lot of people can work with psychedelics, especially with, let's just talk about magic mushrooms. Cause that's what my community is focused on in this now moment. I think the safety profile. is real good, but I don't think we have a contextual understanding of psychedelics.
At all within our culture. So there is a learning curve of understanding how they work in your body and how energetically they work in your body. So there's the physiological, the psychological, and the spiritual, I think, and they're all equally important. And so learning about microdosing, I think. Again, I'll just speak from the Western mother.
I think that this medicine is not supposed to be taken in a vacuum. I think it's meant to be done in community. You talk about that. We talk about the mycelial web. Paul Stamets talks about it all the time. Underneath the ground is a web of mycelium that really connects the whole planet, and that is how mushrooms grow.
And there's something about connection that is deeply important when working with this. And. Learning how it feels in your body and taking real time, like three months plus to really observe and integrate and listen to your body and learn about this medicine is going to give you a lifelong relationship to it.
That's healthy and grounded and informed. And that's why I think having a guide or taking a course or doing it even with a best friend and having communication about it is really important because our culture, we have no context in ceremony. We don't have any context in alternative medicines the way other cultures do.
So it's just. foreign to us and from where I sit and my mentors sometimes disagree with me on this. I really think micro dosing is a beautiful way to create that relationship with the psychedelic and then go on to do a large dose journey and you're going to be much more empowered, much more informed.
You're going to approach it more safely with A more realistic level of expectation. And I think the problem that we're seeing right now with this psychedelic revolution is that people are like, Oh, great. It's going to fix my problems. Nothing else has worked. Sign me up. I'm taking, you know, I'm gonna take three grams and it's going to change everything.
And that can be incredibly destabilizing if you're not prepared.
[00:27:51] Dr. Sophie Shotter: So what sorts of protocol do you follow in terms of dose and dosing? And how often do you take it? Cause you said when you started out, you took it. Basically all the time.
[00:28:02] Tracey Tee: Yeah. So the only protocol I really follow is you never want to take, you never want to microdose.
seven days a week. So you always want to take at least two days off. And that is for integration. That's the part of the neuroplasticity and the rewiring. That's actually when that can happen because you're taking the lessons or the feelings or the insights you might have gotten while you're microdosing.
And then you're Applying them in real time without the aid of the medicine, which is different than an SSRI, right? Like you take an SSRI and you feel stable, but if you stop, you become destabilized where there's no real titration negativity when it comes to microdosing. So you take the days off a, because you can build up a resistance to it and B, you want to apply the lessons you've learned, because I said this from the very beginning when I started moms on mushrooms.
The best outcome for me would be that I, I'm put out of business because everyone understands how to do it. You don't need support and everyone's created a great relationship with it because you don't do it every day. So my protocol is I really, really, really believe in trusting your intuition, much Stamets and James Fadiman who've created like micro dosing protocols.
But I don't with all respect, think we needed another guy in a coat telling us. What to do and how many pills to take and when I think when you create that relationship, your body and your heart is going to tell you what days are right. And what days are you might be leaning into it as a crutch. And maybe those are actually the days you should integrate.
So I microdose anywhere from zero to zero. four or five days a week, depending on where I'm at. And I usually take, I'm a lightweight, so I really don't take much more than a hundred milligrams, typically 50 milligrams.
[00:30:01] Fiona Mattesini: Let's talk about macro dosing. I've never done a macro dose and I guess I'm, I'm afraid because like you, I've never done anything like this.
So it feels like a really big deal, but I'm open to it. So when we talk about macro dosing, we are talking about going quite high and. I guess potentially, well, I don't want to say getting high because that seems to minimize everything we've spoken about so far because people find it very powerful. I think is it Steve Jobs that said macro dosing on LSD was one of the most powerful things he ever did in his life.
I may be misquoting that, but anyway, have you macro dosed and what are your thoughts around taking a much bigger dose?
[00:30:34] Tracey Tee: Yeah, I've absolutely macro dosed. Macro dosing was how I came to start MOM. Every experience I've had taking a large dose journey has been profound and deeply healing. I think that's likely where a lot of the true power lies in psychedelics is the larger dose journeys.
You are going into that expanded altered state of consciousness and you are, really able, like Sophie said, like you're really able to work things out in this altered state in a way that is just not possible psychologically in our kind of conscious state here back down on earth. I think they're profound.
I think everyone, if you're called to it, you should do it in a safe way. way. I do think you should do a guided journey. I just think there's a lot with an experienced guide who's been working with this medicine for a long time, who understands those landscapes. I always say I'm raised in the medicine way, like by medicine women, those are the mentors that have come into my life.
So I think having a shamanic guide or someone who is deeply steeped in the traditions of the medicine. Can be a powerful ally when you do a large dose journey. And we have science that backs up massive breakthroughs, whether it's from like alcoholism, PTSD, treatment resistant depressive disorder. I mean, the list goes on and on that people are even after one journey.
Are able to make profound changes in their lives for the better.
[00:32:06] Fiona Mattesini: Yeah, thank you for that. I have found some experiences less intense and I've dosed up a little bit and I've dosed down again. I mean, is that to do with different mushrooms being different or me being in a different place in terms of set and setting?
I mean, do you find the same thing?
[00:32:21] Tracey Tee: One, we are not a one size fits all race of people, right? So there's so many factors that can go in, especially into microdosing and you can have 50 milligrams. hit you so different day be based on so many facto ate that morning, caffeine level, your intention. I like, I've just sort of l and thrown it back and ju on with my day.
And I fin
I don't want to say eventful, but like, I don't, I am not kind of like with the medicine. That's not like a good micro dosing day versus slowing down, saying a prayer, taking some time to journal or going on a walk, you know, doing a slight amount of ritual and intention setting seems to make all the difference.
putting yourself in a different mindset. So, and then depending on, you know, we can't really go into this, unfortunately, because it's not legal, but the type of mushroom you get strains, we are finding that there is variability into strains, but then it goes deeper into, if you're taking the whole mushroom itself, if it's ground up, is there the fruiting bodies and the stem and the caps, like what is in the microdose?
Are you stacking it with other things? Like there's just so many factors involved.
[00:33:39] Dr. Sophie Shotter: I think it's just fascinating and just so many different factors that come into play, both within ourselves and within the mushroom. So we heard you say on the third wave podcast regarding mushrooms, that I'm just one of those people where we're just made for each other.
Is it therefore the case that mushrooms aren't for everyone?
[00:34:01] Tracey Tee: Mushrooms are not for everyone. I don't think any one thing is for anyone, except for maybe like water and breathe. But besides that, any, what works for me may not work for you. So, I don't think that's a bad thing. I have a girlfriend who is training psychedelic practitioner and mushrooms.
Microdosing, it just doesn't agree with her. She prefers to do larger doses and not microdoses. And some people, you may be in a place in your life where you don't need the spiritual healing properties of mushrooms. So, for me, I found, and you were talking earlier, about like meditating and, and, you know, focusing on things, these different things that can rewire on our pathways for me is like a type a manifesting generator, triple Aries.
I'm just a, I'm a stereotype of a go getter. So it's hard for me to meditate. And, and so mushrooms help me slow down, but not everybody might need that. So. And again, I think that comes back to like this discussion around set and setting and really understanding your why and why you're being called to try it.
And if you really understand that, you know, and, and being honest with yourself, if it's working or if it's not working.
[00:35:19] Fiona Mattesini: Which is supposed to lead to me quite nicely onto the next question, because I know if somebody that doesn't particularly like your friend and get on so well with mushrooms. But does get on really well with LSD.
So if we can talk about LSD, I want to reiterate that this, like psilocybin is legal in the UK. So we're not endorsing anything here. We're just having a conversation, but I want to say that Michael Pollan speaks with incredible sort of scientific prowess. around how this drug entered counterculture, I guess, in the 1960s and possibly was misused and has now been somewhat forgotten for its therapeutic benefits.
And I think you're familiar with the work of Ailet Walden, who wrote a brilliantly titled book called A Really Good Day, How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage and My Life. I was wondering, do you and your husband, microdose together.
[00:36:06] Tracey Tee: We don't actually, we both microdose. I microdose more than my husband does, but never, we haven't actually really done it together.
No,
[00:36:16] Dr. Sophie Shotter: I think it's really interesting because actually also touched on LSD there, but actually there are so many different things that can be microdosed. And I know for example, there's, certain practitioners who really endorse MDMA when it comes to microdosing and couples therapy. I also know of a couple of people who run ketamine type retreats as well.
So there are so many different things. Ketamine would be a bit harder to microdose. I will say that as a former anesthetist, I should know that, but I think it really is a matter of different things suit different people. And also maybe. To do with different things, suit you at different stages of your life, depending on what you're trying to, on the journey you're on at that stage.
[00:37:05] Tracey Tee: Yes, I couldn't agree more. I will just say MDMA for couples therapy and couples is really growing and it is again, it's a heart medicine and I know so many people who have been working with it too, as a couple, especially with MDMA and it's I also know of like mothers and older daughters who have worked with MDMA together to get over relationship humps.
Um, MDMA is a really beautiful relationship. Um, you know, Iboga is another one. Like you're saying, there's so many psychedelics. And so, yeah, understanding.
[00:37:41] Dr. Sophie Shotter: I have a friend who tried an ayahuasca ceremony, had a really a non experience, but then with Iboga had some profound spiritual shifts. I have another friend who likes mushrooms, but actually has a bit of a gut intolerance to mushrooms, but finds it such a strongly positive experience for her that she's happy to tolerate that side effect.
Now, I think it's different strokes for different folks, but I find it fascinating.
[00:38:08] Tracey Tee: Kambo is 1. Um, that's kind of a quick, you know, there's 5 MEO DMT. Yeah. Once you open Pandora's box, it's a whole world. Um, and again, I think, you know, I can't stress enough that well, a, I personally feel like mushrooms are a beautiful.
I don't want to say the word gateway because it has such a negative connotation to it. It sounds like if you start taking mushrooms, you're going to become this crazed drug addict. And I don't believe that to be true at all. We just talked about how you actually become an anti drug addict. Many of us stopped drinking, but it does allow you to broaden your mind and say, what else is out there that the earth is providing.
And again, some of that is just going back and listening to other cultures who are like, Hey. We've been doing this since forever and um, maybe we have something to teach you guys. Yeah.
[00:38:53] Dr. Sophie Shotter: What are your thoughts on societal judgments? So for example, mainstream society being absolutely okay with drinking a lot of alcohol, which comes with so much antisocial behavior and I think more crime than any other drug.
Cigarettes, which are hugely addictive. and cause a whole array of health problems. And to my knowledge, and as far as I've researched, psilocybin isn't addictive. Coffee, again, I think I read someone describing that caffeine is the most unregulated and widely applied drug experiment ever. Or taking SSRIs, so antidepressants.
And what are your thoughts about the links between legislation and pharmaceutical companies who. Can financially benefit from a patented antidepressant drug that they've developed, but not from a plant that's been grown in the ground.
[00:39:52] Tracey Tee: Um, and let's just not forget our friend sugar in the mix of highly addictive, mind altering drugs as well.
Yes. I've been called non responsive and like I'm deflecting when I try to bring in the correlation between alcohol consumption and. Psychedelic use. To me, it seems like the most obvious correlation and the easiest topic to discuss to start the conversation about legalizing psychedelics. Now, do you see rainbows in the sky and unicorns flying when you drink?
A lot of tequila. I don't know, maybe, but not in the way you do when you take a large dose of psychedelic. So there are obvious differences in the way that it affects your body. But the problem is that we have allowed alcohol to become so pervasive in our society that it is almost like. It is. It is. It's part of our culture.
And you know, that started again. We're talking about how to change your mind by Michael Pollan. He outlines this beautifully in his book. It started back in the fifties when scientists and doctors were doing groundbreaking research with psychedelics, especially psilocybin and seeing massive change in people and the government, the US government shut all of that research down, just shut it down and became, it made it illegal.
To even do scientific research, let alone take it as a consumer. And so there's this 50 year blackout of nothing being done. No science progress whatsoever because it was illegal. And in the meantime, this massive flood of misinformation from the government. Talking about how psychedelics are, you know, this is your brain on drugs.
You're going to jump off a building and massive scare tactics. And it is truly wrong. I mean, you're absolutely right. Like alcohol in and caffeine are way more addictive. psilocybin. Psilocybin is actually anti addictive. It actually helps decrease addiction. That's why we're using it in people with alcoholism and even eating disorders like you outlined anorexia.
So we have to reteach ourselves the facts. We have to be open to learning the facts. And I think a lot of the stigma, a lot of the judgment just comes from a generation of people who bought into what our leaders told us. And it's sometimes hard to say, wow, we were just fed a lie and it's hard to unlearn what we've been told.
And in the meantime, we've had these big, large pharmaceutical companies that we know have had very little oversight and how they distribute different medicines and different drugs. And how they are kept accountable for the side effects and the bad things that they might have rolled out. They've come in and convinced everyone that the only way to cure yourself or make yourself happy is through an SSRI, for example, period.
And we've had this generation of doctors subscribe it to, again, many people who desperately needed it. But there, generally speaking, has been no outclaws. So it's just like, take this, period, and there's no This is temporary. Let's look at the root of the problem. Let's talk about your why all these things.
So we have another generation of people that are just addicted to things and have no way of getting out of it. So from where I stand, it's just a lot of unlearning and allowing ourselves to be open to changes.
[00:43:19] Fiona Mattesini: Yeah. And as you say, no exit strategy from SSRIs or any other things. And I feel like there are so many rabbit holes we could go down.
I mean, I, one thing I do want to ask you is what has your work done to your inner circle? Has it polarized friends, family? Do you feel judgment from anyone?
[00:43:36] Tracey Tee: I do feel judgment, but more than anything, the judgment is nothing compared to the outpouring of people who are like, thank you for speaking up.
Thank you for opening my eyes to this. I'm laughing for the first time in years. I'm crying for the first time in years. It's not me doing anything. It's just saying this is an option folks and maybe consider it. And the judgment I think comes from two places. One, There's always going to be people who think altering your state of consciousness is a bad thing.
So be it, that is your prerogative. And I am not here to convince anyone that they should or shouldn't do anything. And then there's another group of people who I think just really want to believe the narrative that they've been told and they don't want to change their mind. And that's unfortunate. And then I guess there's probably a third bucket of people who are like, Oh, you've changed so much.
You're not my cup of tea anymore. And that's natural in anything, right? Like you can start working out and lose a bunch of weight and lose friends because you're not the same girl that you look like before. I mean, this is human nature, but generally speaking, and this is across all age groups, most people, my neighbor, you know, in her mid sixties, just sent me a text message and was like.
Thank you so much. I've listened to your podcast. You've opened my mind. I'm a different person. And she just started microdosing on her own with her functional medicine doctor. She didn't even join moms on mushrooms and she's just, this is amazing. You know? So it really has been overwhelmingly positive.
That I'd prefer to focus on that.
[00:45:14] Dr. Sophie Shotter: Good, good. I think with all of these things, also, when you change your mind, you're changing your vibrational state, and I think that can sometimes mean, along your journey, there are people on it who you're no longer vibrating in alignment, and it doesn't take away from the importance of the relationship at one stage of your life, but it might mean it's not the right relationship for you to have.
In the next stage of your life. And that's perfectly okay. But I think that can happen as part of these journeys as we change our vibrational states.
[00:45:52] Tracey Tee: And I think, you know, Fiona said she was able to just like effortlessly release a really toxic family member from her life and what I found, and this comes in tandem with, you know, my own spiritual practice, again, a more intentional life really, and a lot more vulnerability on my part and being honest with myself, which is also a learned behavior, right?
We're not really taught that. growing up. But what I feel generally in my life is that I have a less tighter grip on just about everything. And it's so liberating to just say that was a moment and have so much gratitude for that season of my life. And then just let it go. And instead saying, no, no, no, this is the way it is.
And we have to keep doing it the same way. It took me years to be open to change, really be open to change. But now it's such a beautiful, magical way to live. But it really is a, it's a lot of tough lessons along the way.
[00:46:47] Dr. Sophie Shotter: Yeah. And I think it's also what you say there about past and things that we hold on to.
But actually. You know, so many of us are hanging on to false memories. We create something and then let that impact on our current state of mind. And I think it's something like 30 percent of people tested have created these false autobiographical memories about themselves. The one thing we would all say, we.
Absolutely no for sure is what we've lived through and our past, but actually when we're creating it for ourselves, um, kind of throws that into question if that's the right thing to be hanging on to. I'd love to delve a little bit more. You, you mentioned earlier in, in the episode that you had a hysterectomy at 41 and I know you had a journey with endometriosis and fertility.
And I was curious about whether, was the plant medicine something you discovered Before the hysterectomy during your endometriosis and fertility journey, or was it something that you found afterwards?
[00:47:53] Tracey Tee: Yeah, I found it afterwards. And I'm so grateful for my like health journey because it's just given me, I just have a lot of compassion for women trying to get pregnant and women's health in general.
I'm 48. And so when I was diagnosed with stage four endometriosis at 26, My doctor and I had a assist the size of a cantaloupe taken off my left ovary at 26 years old. That was after they drained two liters. So it was a big big surgery and When I went back for a checkup with my doctor and this I was living in Los Angeles at the time I had my surgery at Cedars Sinai what considered one of the best hospitals in the nation.
I asked my doctor I said What do I do? You know, like, what do I do now? Like, I was not great. And he just said, call me when you want to get pregnant. And there was no discussion of anything, any lifestyle change, any way to mitigate it. It was basically like, enjoy your life of pain. I went on to have six more surgeries and more cysts taken out.
Had a very hard pregnancy. It took me five years and many fertility treatments to get pregnant. I ended up getting pregnant on my own, which was its own miracle. Then I had preeclampsia and had an emergency C-section and was on beta blockers 'cause I almost had a stroke. So I have not had an easy task.
You've had and a long of a journey the entire way. There was no emotional. Or spiritual caretaking whatsoever, nor was there any options given to me by the medical system to say, like, here's how to maybe mitigate this pain. You know, I, I had to dive in and teach myself everything. It's getting better now.
But had I had something like micro dosing. Back then, especially when I was trying to get pregnant and the tragedy of just month after month of disappointment, I can't even imagine. And I'm seeing kids, I call them kids now, like people, you know, in their late twenties, thirties trying to get pregnant and they're, they're doing ayahuasca journeys before, or they're microdosing and they're.
Really getting clear on even why they want to get pregnant and they're really understanding and wanting to address and clear out their trauma. And I think it's so unbelievably amazing the shift that has happened. So while I wish that I would have had it during those times, and even after my hysterectomy, I would have loved to have had it because I was on Wellbutrin.
I'm so grateful because I have that perspective. And again, I have no judgment for people on SSRIs because I took one myself and it really helped me navigate that shift from my hysterectomy, but I found it after and it's allowed me to absolutely heal 20 years of medical trauma. But I think it could be, I can't even imagine what it must be.
be like to use that in conjunction with medical issues. I think it'd be amazing.
[00:50:49] Fiona Mattesini: And now you're guiding other, let's say younger women who are on that same fertility journey or endometriosis journey, that you're offering that guidance and offering a sort of way forward to help them, which is the wonderful thing, which sort of leads me onto mums and mushrooms.
Um, It seems like a wonderful community. I assume it's only open, Sophie's audience is primarily in the UK. So we've got to ask, I assume it's primarily open for women in the US. Not at
[00:51:14] Tracey Tee: all. We actually have a really beautiful UK community, women in Ireland, Scotland, and England. Shout out to the UK. I just want to say my husband is British.
Oh, yay. Scottish, but he lived in England. So I've got family in England. And so England is a top priority for me, but we have a huge community. We have many women who take our courses. You know, if you can make the time zones work and we always try to accommodate UK time zones for our live. In person courses.
We actually are in about 10 countries. We have women in about 10 countries all over the world right now.
[00:51:48] Fiona Mattesini: Wonderful. Okay. Well, that's, that's really, really good to hear. Um, Tracey, this has been a fascinating chat and I feel as though, again, we could have gone down so many different avenues. There's so much to say, and you've.
Captured all of it just brilliantly. Um, because I know that you do have a lot more that you can, you can tell us. So I do really encourage people to go on to Tracey's site and take a look around and learn more. Um, Tracey, thank you so much. Thank you, Tracey.
[00:52:11] Tracey Tee: Thank you. Just thank you so much for being open in this conversation.
This is the way, this is the way we make change. So I'm really grateful for both of you.
[00:52:24] Fiona Mattesini: And that ends our podcast. If you want to explore more of what we talked about, simply head to the show notes. We've done all of the research and noting down of names, ideas, any studies we mentioned. So you don't have to go digging. To be ahead of the latest episode, press follow on Apple Podcasts. That's the little cross on the top right.
Or simply hit follow on Spotify or whichever podcast app you use. Also, do follow Sophie on Instagram and TikTok. There's loads of great content and little explainers on there. Search for DrSophieShotter. Finally, if you're close to London or Kent, you can book a consultation with Sophie and find out more about who she is and the range of treatments and services she offers via drsophieshotter.com. And by the way, there's some great content on the website too. My name is Fiona Mattesini on behalf of myself and Sophie. Please do take a moment to rate and review the show. It all helps. And of course, thanks for listening.
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