Psychedelics Today

In this episode, in celebration of International Women’s Day, Victoria interviews Tracey Tee: co-founder and CEO of Band of Mothers Media, co-producer and co-host of the Band of Mothers podcast, and founder of Moms on Mushrooms, an online educational community for psychedelic-curious moms outside the prying eyes of social media.

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[00:00:00] Victoria: Tracey, thank you so much for joining me on the eve of International Women's Day. 

[00:00:17] Tracey Tee: I'm so glad to be here. 

[00:00:19] Victoria: How great is it that we find ourselves chatting on a day that we can just sit here and celebrate how great we are? 

[00:00:26] Tracey Tee: Um, I love that. We need more of that. But yes, this is fantastic. 

[00:00:30] Victoria: Wonderful. So, you and I chatted once before, and when we did, uh, we had a full on, like, me too conversation from start to finish, in that we've both strangely had a lot of really similar experiences.

So, we're both moms. We, um, were both endometriosis and hysterectomy veterans. Uh, we share a love of psychedelics and, uh, we both love chatting about them. So I was really excited to get you on the show and talk about what it's like to be a woman and moreover a mother. And some of the implications, um, both of those things have as they relate to, to psychedelics.

So thank you so much for, for joining us today on Psychedelics Today. 

[00:01:16] Tracey Tee: My pleasure. I'm so happy to be here and chat with you. Perfect. 

[00:01:20] Victoria: So to get going, um, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and a little bit about moms on mushrooms? 

[00:01:28] Tracey Tee: Yeah, sure. Thank you. Um, so I, I have a very bizarre origin story.

I came to create a digital community and online platform for classes, uh, specifically about microdosing specifically for moms, which is moms on mushrooms. I came to this new venture, this new act of my life by way of a live, um, performance, a live media entertainment company. Um, for the last 10 years, I co wrote, co produced, performed and toured a live comedy show called the pump and dump show with my best friend and business partner.

That was all about, um, bringing moms together and laughing about the things we had in common as parents. And we started that show back in 2002 in a bar in Northwest Denver when our kids were tiny, tiny, and we were in the throes of new parenthood. And we really just felt like everyone just needed to go out and have a drink and like chill out and laugh about how absurd parenting is.

Like it's insane. Um, And it was, it's funny because that was in a time before having a YouTube channel and before Instagram and before just needing to be a social media presence. Like we were very lo fi. And so the show really caught on. It, it struck a nerve very early on. Um, the first night that we performed, we had 75 women show up and I'm telling all of this because I have been involved.

And from that, we grew and grew and grew until eventually in 2019, we. Sort of passed the torch and self franchised ourselves and, um, created two new casts, one cast out of LA, one cast out of Chicago to start touring the Pump It Up show even more. And I share this because, um, I have just sort of been in the middle of the zeitgeist of, of mom.

struggle. And, uh, and I've seen it evolve over the last 10 years. And as we became more and more popular here in Denver, where I'm from, we eventually started to tour the show and we crisscrossed the country going to every comedy club, music venue, theater and performing arts complex. You can think of just bringing moms together and hearing hundreds, if not thousands of moms laughing, you know, in the same room.

It didn't matter if you, uh, Uh, you know, never tried a cloth diaper or if you ate your own placenta, there was something very unifying about just being moms and just saying, this is a messed up world. And when we were finally ready, our bodies were broken from touring and we were ready to pass the torch.

We, we. created two new casts of these amazing moms and they kind of got their sea legs in 2019. And then in 2020, we had nearly a hundred shows booked across the country, uh, from January until June. And in March we lost everything. We had to cancel all of our shows. These moms who worked so hard. To put their own spin on our show just got sidelined.

These were all actresses and performers, writers, singers themselves. And we watched a decade old business just fall through our fingers with nothing we could do as the pandemic carried on. And then we obviously didn't perform at all in 2020 and 2021. We tried to pivot, pivot, pivot in a million different ways.

And it just never, we just never got it back. And, um, at the end of 2021. We finally kind of just threw in the towel and gave it up. And in the middle of that, I had this sort of large spiritual awakening in the summer of 2020, after having laid on my couch in the fetal position for what felt like weeks, weeping at, at this grieving, this loss, um, something happened to me and it was, uh, in my opinion, divine intervention.

And that really led me to. Pursue this little voice in the back of my head that had been there for a while, which was, I think plant medicine might be a good idea for you. And, um, and so I eventually started microdosing. And, um, when I came to the microdosing practice that I practice now, my life like changed like this.

And I felt like I was able to alchemize. the grief, the, the grief of losing a business, the overwhelm, the banality of being stuck at home, the frustration of COVID. I felt like it was, it wasn't that I wasn't feeling my feelings. I was feeling them and then I was releasing them where I felt like I was seeing a lot of other people kind of.

It was this cycle and it was coming back down in and it was going back down in. And so I'm just, I was amazed at how I was changing so quickly as a woman, as a person, and as a mother with these shrooms. And then in 2021, in that summer, almost a year, a year to The week of my big 2020 spiritual awakening, my family got hit by a drunk driver outside Aspen, Colorado.

Um, at 11 in the morning on a Monday, my 10 year old at the time and my niece were both in the car. Um, we were side, we were side, we were T boned and going 70 miles an hour. And we swerved, we went plowed through a guardrail and flew 30 feet in a ditch and landed in a ditch in the mountains. And then, you know, consequently had to like, Pull our kids out of the car.

And it, we were fine. Um, ish. Uh, we were able to walk ourselves into the ambulance and it was awful, awful, awful, awful. But in the, in the days that followed in the weeks that followed while we all recovered and watched our bruises get smaller and smaller, what I realized is yet again, I was able to transmute this grief of the worst day of my life.

I was able to release it. And it wasn't sticking with me like I knew it would have if I didn't have this medicine. And so that was another kind of confirmation, um, and a deepening of my medicine journey, which led me then to explore obviously macro doses. I was sort of guided to what is, who is now my mentor.

And she really showed me how to go deeper with my practice in large dose journeys. And all of that culminated in us finally letting go of. The pump and dump show and me coming out of the shroom closet. And as I was sitting in meditation one day, mom's on mushrooms, mom just sort of landed in my head like a, like a big aha moment, a gift from God, I guess.

And I sat up and I was like, well, come on. Like someone's obviously thought about that. Like, there's no way it's too good. So I ran to, um, go daddy and put it in and it was available. And I just, I remember looking up and I was like, Okay. God, I guess this is what we're doing now. And the rest is history. We had the holidays and then in during the holidays, this course just sort of flooded out of me.

And I reached out to a handful of women I had been talking to kind of on the DL about microdosing and how it was helping me so much. And I, I asked them and I said, do y'all just want to like take a course with me and. I can teach you what I know, and we'll try this out together, and we did that, and I kind of, I put myself through what I like to call Tracey's Homeschool College, Tracey's Psychedelic Homeschool College, and I've just been absorbing everything I possibly can.

And, uh, as a surprise, mostly to me, Moms on Mushrooms just sort of has blossomed into what is now an online community. We have a portal where, um, people can join a monthly membership for four bucks. I kind of call it Facebook for Moms on Shrooms. It's away from social media. It's away from prying eyes. And it was created for women who are, mothers who are curious.

about psychedelics, but maybe don't want to dive in and they just want to learn, but they don't want to follow hashtag psilocybin on Instagram, which is a terrible idea. And it's for mothers who have probably, or have maybe been using this medicine for years and years, but never felt like they had a community.

And then we teach courses. I now have a second facilitator. Um, we do three month cohort courses. There's a, uh, online, a digital download microdosing one on one for moms, for people who are curious. And, um, I'm just kind of here to be, to set the container for mothers to learn about. Plant medicine, specifically psilocybin, at this point, and I, I think microdosing is a great gateway for mothers to understand the power of psychedelics, and that's where I am.

[00:10:36] Victoria: Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all of that with me, and a lot to unpack there, for sure. So, I, as I mentioned, I'm a mom as well. I have a 26 year old stepdaughter, a 9 year old son, and I had a daughter who would have been 10 right now, but we ended up having to give her back to the earth shortly after she was born in 2012.

And so, for me, there's Um, there's a lot there, uh, with being a mom, and raising, having, and losing children. Um, and psychedelics have helped me personally, uh, a lot through it all. And I can share some of my own stuff in a minute if, if you'd like. 

[00:11:19] Tracey Tee: Please. 

[00:11:20] Victoria: I, no, no problem, but, uh, I would love to know first, um, have psychedelics changed the way you parent, or have they helped you navigate the challenge of being a parent, and if so, how?

[00:11:34] Tracey Tee: Yeah, they have, you know, it's, it's, it's ha It's hard to delineate because I think we all changed how we parent as of 2020, right? Like everyone had to shift in certain ways, whether they liked it or not. Um, so I know that that was part of it, but I think for me and, um, I started microdosing when my daughter was 10, she's now 12, or maybe she was nine and she's now 12.

Um, And so I'm grateful to have the support as we move into the tween and teen years, which are a whole interesting navigation and a whole new level of emotional, um, attention that's required for your kiddos. It's very different than having a toddler. Um, and so I have found that I am more patient and I think I am much I'm much more in tune with what she needs and I'm much more willing to let go of what The world tries to tell me we should be as a family unit, as a mother and a daughter, as a, you know, with how she should be with her dad, how we should be together as a family, how it should look, and I'm much more, um, I think committed to like doing what's right for Evie.

No matter what that, no matter, I don't really care what people think. And I think that's probably the biggest, um, support tool that the medicine gives me. And I, cause I feel like I'm listening to her, like I'm listening to her heart more versus this. I think what can happen is this. Not only reactive pattern that we inherit from our own parents, like, Oh, you're fine.

And we just sort of do, well, that's how it was when I was a kid and just pass on the same narrative for generations and keep going. I'm, I feel like I'm just kind of tossing all that stuff out the window. 

[00:13:30] Victoria: Yeah, that's amazing. Um, I had a, a similar breakthrough, um, within the last few months about really hearing my son, which I don't know I would have had if it weren't for, for psychedelics and, um, They've, yeah, I was thinking about this before, before we started chatting today, and I think that, like, for me, they've really helped me focus on what's true, you know, um, it seems like psychedelics uncover, like, a lot of truths for me, and have made it a lot harder for me to lie to myself, and when you're a parent, Like, it's your job to try and teach your child about the world, and how to be a person in the world.

And so, you know, it forces you, parenthood forces you to affirm within yourself what you believe about the world, and the nature of people, and God, and the afterlife, and everything. Um, because your kids come to you with like, These huge questions on these colossal, complicated subjects, and I think that what I've learned through psychedelics and cannabis helped me make sense of some of these things within myself and explain them in like a non judgmental way, looking at facts, and they just helped me present ideas with a little more clarity.

And like, and the other big thing, I guess, and Like, I can probably thank my therapist for this more than psychedelics, the psychedelics are just like a little booster, but, uh, Um, they've taught me a lot about exercising rigorous self compassion, so, Yeah, and I don't, I don't know if you've done any of this stuff, but I've done, um, a lot of inner child work and re parenting of myself through therapy, and Actually some of the most intensive work that I've done, um, You know, with inner child work has been with psychedelics and looking at childhood trauma and where I developed some of the most like deranged core beliefs about myself at a really young age.

And, um, and so through a lot of like guided trips and mostly integration, I've been able to look As an adult at the child version of myself still in there and tell her what's true about her and that there's, you know, no reason for self loathing or shame or any of that stuff. And so, as a result, I've been able to pass along a lot of that to my child as I've been learning it and it's all come at a really serendipitous time.

Again, my son is nine and He's at that pivotal age where you form a lot of those, like, self concepts, and, um, Yeah, I can just pass a lot of these ideas along to him about self compassion, about, like, viewing the world without judgment, about the importance of being, like, proud of who he is, and You know, to love without restraint and to be authentic and just, like, love himself, you know, and every little thing about him and, like, it's also, like, it's a reciprocal kind of, like, cyclical thing that's happening because I can reaffirm these things to myself as I'm teaching them to him.

So, you know, Yeah, it's really cool. I wouldn't have been able to do this if it weren't any of this without psychedelics. And I just like, wonder how many of those, to your point, like warped ways of believing I would have passed on to my child that were passed down to me, um, if it weren't for this work. So it's just, I think it's, it's a real gift as a mother to, to be able to, you know, to work with psychedelics.

[00:17:03] Tracey Tee: Yeah, it's um, and it's fascinating to as I see my daughter get older and I work really hard doing the exact same things You're doing, you know teaching herself compassion and love and think for yourself. I mean she goes to a she goes to a private Catholic school We're not Catholic It's just happens to be the right school for her But you know She opted out of Ash Wednesday because she was like I don't feel like I need to feel bad about my life You know, she goes I I don't think I need to ask for forgiveness.

I think I'm doing okay. Like, I know, I was like, so she is hearing me. And then in the same breath, I'll, I'll hear her doubt herself. I'll see her view herself negatively. And I'm like, what, where did that come from? Like, we worked so hard not to pass that on to you. And it's like, I think it's in your DNA.

And so to realize it and to see it kind of from a 30, 000 foot view. It's its own set of challenges because, because some of it we can't even control, like they'll just, they're just going to inherit belief systems that, you know, who knows where they pick it up, right? Um, but to be able to, to navigate it and, and then see them.

And also I was going to say to be able to apologize. Um, I think for me, it's not something that was my destiny had I not had this divine intervention. I think I would have been pretty stubborn, which I contend to be. I would have not wanted to be vulnerable with my daughter because I think I was raised to say that that wasn't something that is good or that I should show.

I'm the parent. My way is the highway. And instead I'm much softer. I asked for forgiveness. I tell her when I screw up, I admit my mistakes. I ask her what she thinks. And that like, I always talk about old Tracey and new Tracey, old Tracey and Shroom Tracey, and old Tracey would have never been like that. And I think that's, that's a real gift because it allows me to, like you're saying, in asking forgiveness and admitting my mistakes.

[00:19:09] Victoria: Cool. Do you think your, your daughter has noticed a shift in you since you started using plant medicines? You know, I get asked that question a lot. 

[00:19:19] Tracey Tee: Um, I think she knows, I think she sees me being Well, I was going to say, I think she sees me being very passionate about what I do and we're very open about what I do, but she's also, she was also saw me be very passionate.

She grew up with a mom who is an actress and a performer and she's grown up in a house, you know, of like a working entrepreneurial mom that has like this weird job that none of the other moms have. So in one sense, I'm not too far off the mark from old Tracey. Um, But I think she sees me being of service, um, and I think she sees, like, um, the heart of this one, that I felt in my old job, but it didn't quite, it didn't, you know, it wasn't psychedelic, it didn't get, it didn't quite get to the soul.

Um, and I also think she'll never tell anyone if she does see it, because she's 12. Yeah, so 

[00:20:21] Victoria: yeah, she's got bigger fish to fry right now. I did when I was 12. Yeah, so I'd like to talk a little bit about moms and substances more broadly for a moment. And this is something we talked about a little bit culturally the the wine mom, you know, like the mom who has, you know, half a bottle of wine.

Every night after dinner or needs wine to parent. It's, it's this like, you know, archetype if I can use that word. No, it is. I think it's a perfect word. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, it's like this archetype that's become highly accepted and even kind of celebrated in our culture and While I love a glass of wine, don't get me wrong, um, I think there's something that's like really fundamentally sick and problematic about celebrating that need to drink a half a bottle of wine to deal with your kids or, you know, whatever it is.

And then if you look at like combining that, you melange of different prescriptions. like SSRIs and anxiety medications, which by the way work very well for many people, but they're highly, often highly overprescribed and are the first line of defense offered to moms ahead of holistic treatments or nutrition or exercise or therapy and certainly Before psychedelics.

So, what, I would just love to know, like, as someone who has kind of seen it all in terms of like, you know, what moms use to cope, what is your take on all of that? 

[00:22:03] Tracey Tee: Thank you. I've, I've seen it all and I've been it all. Like, I was a wine mom. Um, I don't have a ton of regrets in my life, but that's one of them, a big one, actually, that I, I remember, I remember an afternoon when my daughter was like three and I went over to my best friend's house at like three in the afternoon and we probably drank two, three bottles of Chardonnay in the middle of the day.

And, and like, there was no discussion that that was an indicator that something was terribly wrong, you know? Um, we just thought we were having the time of our lives. And I look back at that time and I'm like, God, I wasn't in my body. I wasn't present. I was obviously overwhelmed physically. I think a lot of it was physical overwhelm, just being touched all the time, being having to carry somebody all the time.

Uh, I had a very hard pregnancy. I think I was recovering and it wasn't addressed. I think I had postpartum probably for years. Um, that was undiagnosed because I wasn't, I didn't appear to be, you know, the, uh, Whatever depressed looks like, you know, but, um, and then I was rewarded for hanging out with my girlfriends and slugging gallons of Chardonnay.

And then when we did the pump and dump show, you know, obviously that's a riff on drinking and, and, you know, you pump and dump so that you can breastfeed your, you know, because you can drink. Um, And, you know, our show is very tongue in cheek in that way, but we quickly became aware that we were part of the problem and we really, and, and that when women came to our show.

It was like race to the finish line of how much they could drink. And we, we were like, this isn't what we wanted, you know? And so we really had to dial back like our rhetoric and our positioning, because that was right in this time where this wine mom culture, you know, and became so pervasive. It was like, it was, it was, it is an archetype.

You nailed it. And you know, part of it, I'm, The pendulum had to swing to the kind of this whole hot mess mom, you know, showing, because there is this, there's this bifurcation of the perfect Instagram mom who drives us all crazy, but we follow, it's like, we can't look away. And then there's this other Instagram mom that has like an equal amount of followers.

Who's like literally making money off of like massive dysfunction and being a hot mess and not being able to deal. And, and so we're, We're guided to these polar, um, identities and in the middle are, are women just wanting to like make it through the day. And so, and then I look, historically, like if it, you know, it was wine, before that it was martinis, you know, and then it was Valium, and we've always had, there's always been some way to sort of, I feel like, Shut women up from being hysterical.

Like shut moms up. It's like, you're not allowed to just say that this is really fucking hard. You're not allowed to say that this isn't what you expected. You're not allowed to say that you don't know what you're doing and. Also, because we didn't have help, we're also not going to help you because we don't, you need to go through this bizarre, very sadistic rite of passage that we went through.

And here's your pill and here's your wine and that's, that's our gift to you. And I think we, We really screwed up and we've, and it's been screwed up for like a long time, like generations, like over a hundred years. And I think right now the medicine mushrooms in particular are presenting themselves to society because we're at a critical point where women cannot keep poisoning themselves and numbing ourselves out like we have been.

And yes, you're right. Like, and then the, the use of antidepressants on top of it, Again, it's the same thing. It's like, well, you're just depressed. Well, no one's looking at the root cause. No one's doing a hormone check. No one's asking if you're exercising, no one's asking if you've got support, you know, um, they just give you a pill and then there's no exit.

There's no exit strategy. And there's no integration. You know, all we talk about in the psychedelic space is integration, integration, integration, right? Who integrates? 150 milligrams of Zoloft every day. Where's that integration? It doesn't exist. You're just supposed to take it and passively let that wash over you and then continue doing the same thing over and over.

It's madness. 

[00:26:58] Victoria: Yeah, you're saying a lot that really, um, is bringing up a lot for me. Thank you for sharing all that. Um, I've had a similar, a few similar, um, situations after my son was born. Um, I remember a few weeks after My son was born, um, and I was still, uh, with him in the NICU, uh, taking care of him, and my doctor basically insisted that I go on SSRIs, which, and sleeping pills, because I wasn't sleeping, and I was sleeping by, you know, beside his, um, his little cot in the NICU every night, and she told me that she prescribed SSRIs to postpartum moms at the best of times to just, like, help them get through it.

But, um, Uh, you know, I, she thought really needed them because I'd just been through two years of incredible trauma after losing my daughter and then having a second premature baby and, you know, being, looking at months ahead in neonatal and so, yeah, I was dealing with more than just your run of the mill postpartum, um, but Uh, you know, yeah, and it was compounded with this grief and this loss that I didn't end up fully dealing with until 2020 through MDMA therapy, which is a whole other story.

But, um, I just, too, like, I, I was just so, like, to your point, I was so beaten down, like, after we got out of the hospital and got home, I was just so beaten down. And. You know, I had no time or no energy as a new mom to really work on myself. Um, so what worked for me were a few years of alcohol and prescriptions And I developed a really problematic relationship with sleeping pills and if i'm being honest, like I didn't take them because I couldn't sleep I couldn't sleep but the main reason I took them, you know at the end of the day was because I just wanted it all to fade away, you know, and like, yeah, and those drugs, you know, they're really good at the Z drugs, the hypnotics or Z drugs that we say Z in Canada, but uh, they're really, they're really great at Erasing memories in big chunks of time and, you know, reducing inhibitions and I was at a place with my trauma without really even being consciously aware of it where I just wanted to forget.

So, those things, yeah, and I had young mom friends too who all had, you know, kids around the same age and They were all drinking to kind of cope, and we would get together and do the exact same thing. We had a wine club, and we would meet once a month, and everybody would bring a bottle or two bottles, and we would just get shit faced.

And, like, it was fun. Socially, it's a great thing to do, but, like, you know, it was just, it wasn't a sustainable or healthy way to kind of cope with that which we were coping with, so. And it's so funny because the irony, I've, like, I've thought about it, and the irony, when I started taking MDMA and psilocybin really mindfully, in moderation, in a lot of clean preparation, acting with a really super structured plan, I felt the most potential for judgment of all, because Oh, oh yeah.

Totally, because they're illegal drugs, and also not everyone gets it, so I'm wondering, like, what is your take on the different ways that we've come to view substance use with moms, both, like, as Dr. Carl Hart says, the good drugs and the bad drugs, um, among mothers, like, what is, what is your take there?

[00:30:22] Tracey Tee: Well, uh, I could be very broad, and I could say a very blunt statement, but I actually think it's a little bit more nuanced, um, I think, but I think it's very inverted. I think the bad drugs are celebrated and the good drugs are demonized. Sure. I think, uh, we do not want happy, sovereign, in control, clear headed mothers.

I don't believe as a culture, and I don't think it's intentional, I think it's been Adapted over time, but I don't think it's a culture. We actually think that moms know what to do, and I don't think mothers know what think they know what to do, and it's compounded by the fact that we don't have any community.

You know, where were the mothers who showed up when you got out of NICU? Like, where was your community? Holding you in this horrible time, like you should have been surrounded. That was the point of church, you know, that you, that you had this community that said, You're, there's no way you're okay, and that's okay, we're just here to help you.

People don't want to 

[00:31:31] Victoria: relish in ugliness, they don't, you know, yeah. And they're 

[00:31:33] Tracey Tee: busy, we're too busy, and we're in our own shit that we don't even know how to get out of. And so the only thing that's been accepted is that it's okay for you to be drunk, it's okay for you to be fucked up. It's okay for you to be zoned out on prescriptions and it's okay.

You know, go to therapy for 10 years and take all the pills the doctor says, and all of that is okay. But if you start to step out of the box that we have been put in, which is a mom who's just not okay, and everyone knows it, but you only have your, you have three tools, smoking, why booze and pills. Those are your tools.

And church, you can go to church. If you step out of that box and start to say, you know what? There's something better out there for me. How dare you? Okay. No, you've got a fourth one. You can exercise and you can ruin your body and you can be, you can, you can be skinny. Um, but yeah, otherwise, how dare you?

How dare you look different? How do you act different? How dare you try to heal and anything? And I think it's always so funny. Like there's so many names and they're funny. I feel this bubbling up. This is such a bizarre correlation. I hope you can follow me. I feel this bubbling up in the MLM world, like with Um, essential oils like I'm a big plant person and I always when I tell my psychedelic story, I always leave out the fact that I am like a green witch.

I've had, I have herbs all over my house. Like I, I love plants and I always forget that this has been coming for a long time. Um, so I love essential oils. And I see these memes and the sort of, um, religious fervor that can happen when people glob on to an MLM and I have a lot of compassion because I think what it presents to a lot of people is a way out that's different than either having to go to work or having to just stay home for the kids.

It's like, it's like a. It's a little bit of an exit strategy. And so then we, and I'm not saying it's great. There's a lot of problems with it, but we tend to shame those mothers like, Oh God, she's selling that thing again, rather than saying girlfriends looking for something to do. Yeah. She's looking for a community and she's looking for.

She's looking to use her mind again. And so I think it's like that same idea where we just roll our eyes and, and, and then the good drugs are called the bad drugs because how, you know, I was on an interview on NPR and they interviewed this doctor and they asked like, well, what do you think about microdosing?

And what do you think about mom's this movement? Mom's microdosing. He's like, well, this, and he was like a Harvard doctor or something. And he was like, well, you know, I just think they're just all experimenting on themselves. Well, what a really convenient thing for you to just put me back in my box with, that I'm just experimenting on myself.

That I have no autonomy, I have no intellect, I haven't done any research, and that I'm just this sad mom that's experimenting on myself. Like, fuck you. That's what I think.

You asked. 

[00:34:43] Victoria: Wow, no, no, that was, that was perfect. Um, and it's interesting. That's like a nice segue into this idea of, like, the privilege. That some women appreciate to speak freely about psychedelics like you and I Having this conversation right now in such a public forum is not something that um, You know a lot of women get to do And like as a mom I take a really calculated risk in discussing my substance use publicly.

Um, you know, someday, my son or his friends or his friend's parents might hear these episodes or see me interviewed on YouTube or talk in wherever, and, um, I might face some judgment there. Uh, but luckily, Everyone else in my life gets it, and that's probably, like, the extent of the relative danger for me.

Um, I also work for a psychedelics company, so, um, I have no, like, public facing image to really protect and no significant reason to hide. But a lot of women are in, um, you know, really precarious life situations. They may be under the watch of a social worker or in government housing. or may have a vengeful ex or have precarious employment and to speak publicly with anyone about their use of psychedelics or even wanting to explore using them could really jeopardize their quality of life and could even result in their children being taken away.

So I would love it if you could tell me a little bit about like some of the challenges that your members have gone through, um, to find community and around visibility and how, how does moms Uh, on mushroom support them through that. 

[00:36:24] Tracey Tee: Yeah, gosh, you, thank you for realizing that because everything, I'm like, I see this every day, you know, I see it every day.

Um, I would say at least 60 percent of the moms who come and join our community are single moms that are either in the process of separation or divorced. So yes, there's a custody issue always. Um, many of the moms are teachers. Nurses, doctors, uh, married to lawyers, um, and. And then many of these moms are terrified, terrified that what they want to do will result in their children being taken away.

And I'm talking like emails in the middle of the night. I can't take your course. I can't do this. I can't, I'm just, I'm terrified. And, um, all, all we can do is say, Yes, we understand and don't ever do anything that you don't want to do. And then I, you know, I'm very God centered, like I'm, that's, that's my, that's my man.

And so I had to, when this all, you know, and I was very fortunate to have one of those journeys where my Dharma was just sort of shown to me. And I think that had to happen because I had to be very clear in my mind where I was going. I pray for protection. Every day it makes me want to cry. I pay for protection every day.

I pray for protection of the other women in this space every day, because I know there are women that I work with who cannot, that are in this space that cannot show their faces and cannot have, they cannot go to jail. And, um, it is, it is a calculated risk. And I've been fortunate like you, I haven't really received a ton of judgment and I don't really care.

Like, You know, like, yeah, I don't really care. Um, and that's, that's been a beautiful release, but I think what is the most upsetting to me is the fear is like this push pull of saying, of hearing either my story or your story or reading how to change your mind or watching a Netflix thing and saying, I, my soul is telling me this makes sense.

Like my soul is telling me to give this a shot. I might have a way out of this. And then my head is like, You cannot do this. You're a bad person. This is shameful. You might die, which is ridiculous. And at the very least, your children will be taken away from you. And I, that is why I'm talking to you.

Because, like, that has to stop. It has to stop. And so, yeah, so I created moms off of social media because of that exact reason I had to find a platform to convince people that at least as much as I can in this digital age where, you know, we're all being spied on to some degree, like that you're going to, you're protected, that you can come into this community and you don't have to fill out a profile, you can change your name, you don't have to put your photo up if you don't want to, but you can still find the others.

You can still find the mothers. And, and learn, and not have to follow a psychedelic account on Instagram that all your friends and your parents see, or join a Facebook group, you know, like, I get it. So I've tried to pull everything and be insular as much as I can, and Quite frankly, you know, when we have enough money, I'll build the whole thing from scratch and put it on the blockchain so that everyone is protected as much as possible.

Um, because it is a real concern and a valid one. It's illegal. 

[00:40:04] Victoria: Yeah, no, 100%. And Tracey, I just want to like, just stop and say thank you so much for Um, forgive me for like using this quote, but just like being the change that you want to see, right? And giving a face and a voice to, yeah, to, to this thing that's really important to you.

Um, I worked in cannabis before I was in psychedelics, before cannabis, cannabis was recreationally legal in Canada. And I, used to talk about this stuff there too. I used to talk about my recreational use. I was a patient as well and legal to consume, but I was consuming cannabis illegally, uh, you know, recreationally as well.

And I thought it was important at the time to give a face to what responsible adult use could look like, you know, and just be a model of that change that I knew, um, yeah, that I wanted to see and that I, um, and help break some of the stigmas that I knew were out there because legalization was coming and I wanted to show like, hey, look, I'm a parent, I'm a taxpayer, I'm a homeowner, I'm this, I'm that, I volunteer, I do this and that, and I used Drugs like this is you know, it is possible.

And so I think we even you know passively and without really Knowing it sometimes when we come out and speak in a public forum or make posts or do you know, whatever Visibly and I can completely appreciate that not everyone is comfortable or can do that. I think it really makes a difference though 

[00:41:37] Tracey Tee: Yeah, it helps.

I think so creates 

[00:41:39] Victoria: Yeah, the kind of type of world that we want to see. I 

[00:41:42] Tracey Tee: think it, well, it's, yeah, I mean it absolutely does. And, um, and it's like not enough. 

[00:41:52] Victoria: Yeah. 

[00:41:53] Tracey Tee: You know, I think as women too, a lot of what I deal with is our, it's like our programming to distrust other women. 

[00:42:00] Victoria: Sure. 

[00:42:01] Tracey Tee: So, like, I can show up and you're gonna, you're gonna decide.

You know, if you don't know me and you just meet me, you're going to make your decision about me based on a million different factors down to what my hair looks like, you know, where we are, what I'm wearing, and then you're going to find out, you're going to make a judgment on me about how many kids I have and what my husband does.

And then you're going to make a judgment about not, let me, if we even get to what I do, which is what we never like to ask each other, what women do. And then you're really gonna, you're really going to get a judgment on me if I just tell you that I microdose psilocybin a few times a week. Now, am I going to ask you?

How many times a week do you drink? Never. Like literally never. And we're probably having this initial conversation over a drink because that's the only way we can even talk to each other. And so the irony is so lost is like so prevalent to me that like is not lost that. It's almost, it's like maddening, it's at a maddening point, because it's so, inverted is the only way I can describe it, you know?

Because you can, you can show up and keep saying the same thing, but we won't even let ourselves hear it. That's where we're at at the moment. 

[00:43:12] Victoria: Indeed. We just gotta keep on trucking, I guess. Yeah, 

[00:43:17] Tracey Tee: yeah, totally. I don't mean to make it so doomsday, but, um, it's just interesting. 

[00:43:22] Victoria: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So I'd, um, I'd like to shift gears just a little bit here and, um, talk a little bit about womb trauma and reproductive disease.

As I mentioned off the, off the top, we're, um, we're both endo and a hysterectomy survivors. Um, I had stage four endometriosis, um, before I had my surgery. I don't know if I could still say that I have it now, but, um, anyway. That's 

[00:43:47] Tracey Tee: one, that one's unclear. 

[00:43:48] Victoria: Yeah, it's a weird one, but, um, but yeah, after, after years of surgeries and, uh, interventions, I finally had the last surgery in 2021, lost my, uh, ovaries, lost my uterus, um, and, uh, in hopes of stopping the spread of the disease.

I've. Been able to use psychedelics, um, to help me deal with, uh, you know, some issues related to, um, my disease, but I'm wondering, uh, and I'm happy to get into that, but I'm wondering first, like, if you have used psychedelics or if you know women who use them to deal with reproductive disease as well, or even deal with pregnancy loss or fertility issues or, or anything like that.

[00:44:29] Tracey Tee: Um, truthfully, I, okay, so I had a full hysterectomy, so I had my ovaries, my uterus, my cervix, and my fallopian tubes all removed, so I, I got nothing, um, and I had that, I'm just like a hole in the middle, it's just like a, it's just like empty space, um, and I, uh, That happened before my journey with plant medicine, and man, do I wish that I had had that support.

Um, brilliantly, and I think for, you know, in terms of my life path for a good reason, my doctor put me on Welbutrin. prior to my surgery to bridge me over because I would go, I, you know, I walked into the hospital with hormones and I walked out with nothing. I went into instant menopause as you did when you lose your ovaries.

Um, and it's, it's instant. It's like within 24 hours, it's you start to feel the change. It's insane how reliant we are on. And so she gave me Wellbutrin to help mitigate some of the fallout of that. And I'm so grateful. I'm grateful because I have a lot of compassion for people who take antidepressants.

And I know, and I'm grateful because it helped me. It helped me a lot. Um, And I don't know a ton of women, you know, within the mom community that utilize psilocybin or psychedelics for fertility. But I can tell you, I, you know, I'm seeing a trend of younger moms. I'm 46. So I would say like this younger generation, I'm seeing women do ayahuasca journeys.

Do psilocybin journeys, do medicine work prior to getting pregnant, maybe for fertility, but also to be really clear on that baby. And I think it's so amazing. Wow. Like, like, so it's like intentional on top of intentional and I'm seeing this happen. And so that gives me a lot of hope and I hope that as I progress and I learn, I can offer more.

But as you know, there's just not a lot of studies around it. Yeah. Either. 

[00:46:38] Victoria: Yeah. 

[00:46:38] Tracey Tee: You know. 

[00:46:39] Victoria: No, there aren't and we've got a great article coming out this week by by Kaia Roman about the lack of representation of women in Clinical trials and in that piece I've read it and it's it's a wonderful piece. It'll be up on our websites tomorrow but I, uh, yeah, in that piece she talks about, uh, some of the studies that are being done around psychedelics and, uh, diseases that only affect women, so there is some research, um, but I've, I've talked to other women too who, who have used psychedelics Really mindfully to help deal with some of this stuff.

And though I don't recommend anything that I've, I've tried for anyone else. What was really helpful for me, um, uh, oddly enough was, um, was DMT, uh, in the parts of my illness that I felt really, uh. Imprisoned in my own body where I couldn't get out of bed at some points and when I could I couldn't really enjoy anything And so when I felt really in prison DMT really helped me kind of escape like the mortal Confines of my own body for just like short vacations, right?

I 

[00:47:51] Tracey Tee: resonate with that deeply. Yes Totally exactly how you felt. Yeah. 

[00:47:55] Victoria: Yeah, and it's like I was able to come back and like, it was like coming on, going, yeah, like going on a short vacation and coming back with a little invigoration and wonder that just like, um, took me out of my pain for a while and when pain is ever present, it's a real gift to be able to divorce yourself from it, um, from focusing on your body and, and leave it temporarily.

So, um, yeah. Yeah, I just think it helped me feel a little less like shackled by my own mortality and presence of the pain. And like I say, I know some other women who have used different substances to help them reclaim sovereignty over their bodies, especially when dealing with Um, you know, sexual trauma and eating disorders and a host of other issues.

Um, do you know any women or have you used psychedelics to like, help reclaim your body? Or are you hear, what are you hearing from women who, from women who do that? 

[00:48:56] Tracey Tee: Yeah. Uh, I think, uh, I, so many women who come into my comm, I mean, okay, we use womb trauma, you know, that's been an established terminology.

It's, it gets thrown around a lot, but I, I really think we all have womb trauma. Like it's not easy to give birth. You know, I had an emergency c section, of course, because nothing, I call myself reproductively challenged. Like literally nothing has ever worked my entire life. Yeah. Um, and. There's just, there's very few women, I think, that can have that euphoric unless they're on psychedelics while they're giving birth, like, um, which is common.

Not common, but happens. Um, yeah. Uh, so I think womb trauma is something that we need to collectively, truly look into, and that's kind of what we touched upon earlier. Like, just, Postpartum doesn't end at six weeks. Um, so a lot of women come into the mom community seeking reconciliation with their womb trauma for sure like that.

And, and it, it comes up inevitably because it doesn't ever leave you. Um, I can say for myself, uh, one specific journey I knew I was like, okay, it's time. It's time to like sort out my sordid past. You know, I've had multiple surgeries, um, multiple emergency surgeries, multiple cysts removed, all the things.

And I, I felt like I hadn't, I haven't really addressed any of it. And so that was one large dose journey was kind of the intention going in. And what I was shown was that I truly have not been in my body Maybe ever like there's been Tracey. That's this very functioning type a loud like person that's gotten a lot done in her life and then there's Tracey over here like the real Tracey that's just been watching and cannot connect and I like the medicine it like Through all aspects of myself together and then it pulled me all apart so that I saw all different aspects of Tracey floating in the cosmos and when I felt the pain of separation, I was pushed back together and then I was dropped back into my body and I tell you Victoria, I wept for hours.

I wept at the pain of being in my body. Like every cell feeling it because I have left it because I was in so much pain like you and when you said shackle I remember going on stage one time before a show Feeling like that scene in Christmas Carol with Marley and all the chains and the locks like I remember walking on stage In so much pain in front of mothers and even that it's like, it's not recognized.

It's like, well, just deal with it. Just go on, you know? And I was like, I just wanted to lie down. I was so tired and like, and so, but I still did it. So I left myself to do a show, to have a kid, to get married, to live a life. And I was finally able to reconcile it. And I would say now a year later from that journey, I'm still Coming to terms with what it feels like to be in this body because I don't think I have been for a long time So yeah, the medicine's really helping but it's not pretty.

[00:52:18] Victoria: Yeah, I was gonna ask what it's like on earth 

[00:52:22] Tracey Tee: Yeah, it's it's not pretty and it's it feels real it feels very real and it's very It's very sad and it's a lot of like, um, I yeah, like I'm not I don't love like rehashing the past. I don't love carrying, you know, victimhood. But I am sad for what I lost. And I have, when I work with the medicine, again, intentionally, safely, all the things that we've been talking about, I am shown piece by piece.

I'm like calling all those parts back. And It's not easy, but it's like, I'm rebuilding, I'm like a Lego, I'm like a Lego project right now. And I would never be able to do that without the shrooms. 

[00:53:10] Victoria: Ever. I love that. I love that. Um, so I'm, I'm just looking at our time and we're coming up on the hour. I'd like to ask you, is there anything that you want women to know?

Anything, um, Any final thoughts for, for women who may be listening, who may be interested in checking out mom or anything at all that we haven't covered that you think is, is really crucial for women to hear? 

[00:53:35] Tracey Tee: Gosh, I wanted to ask you the same question. I just, I, like, what do I want to, I mean, I want, Any mother who's, you know, seeking or thinking about, or curious about psychedelics, um, psilocybin microdosing, like come to mom, it's a 4 a month membership.

It's just enough money to eliminate trolls truly, you know? Um, and. It's about, it's none of it is about me being any type of guru or influencer. I'll never ever know enough about this medicine ever in my lifetime. It's about the container and I truly feel, um, like, especially like when I talk with you, I'm convinced that we can figure this out together.

Like we don't need a dude in a coat telling us how to do this. Like we know, we just have to keep talking about it. And so, Join the community and, and start talking and, and use your voice and your, your gifts and your knowledge and your stories and add them to the pot because that's how we learn. That is, that is the, that is the women that you needed when you came back from NICU, like you needed that.

Um, and so that's all I want is just. That, and I don't know where we go from here. You know, I just, I'm curious what you think, like what, what's your vision, you know, being in the psychedelic space and, and, and doing this podcast, like, what do you wish for when you lie in bed at night 

[00:55:00] Victoria: for women or women? I just want women to.

I just want for everyone, but women, because this is, you know, the body that I've gone through the world, you know, transported in, um, I just want women to have the freedom within themselves to feel okay to be themselves. Um, I think that there are a lot of external and internal forces that sort of prevent us from being authentic and being authentically us and being our true selves and a lot of the work that I've done through psychedelics is you know, to the point you just made been about coming home to myself and becoming myself and just like, realizing who I am and taking joy in it.

And, um, you know, uh, yeah, just being able to be Exactly who I am with no reservations, and I don't know how much of that is a byproduct of, you know, just getting older. I feel that the older I've gotten, um, you know, the more confident I have become in who I am and not giving a shit about what the rest of the world thinks and being able to let go of old ideas.

But I feel like a lot of it's probably due to the work that I've done, um, as well. So, yeah, I just want for women to be able to feel free. That's what I want. 

[00:56:28] Tracey Tee: Yeah. 

[00:56:29] Victoria: Yeah. Agree. And it 

[00:56:31] Tracey Tee: doesn't, it looks a lot different than you think on the other 

[00:56:34] Victoria: side. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we're not all skipping together in a field full of clover wearing flowing dresses and holding hands.

[00:56:44] Tracey Tee: No, no, no. There's definitely me tripping over said clover and like looking really awkward in a dress. You got it. Yeah, yeah. 

[00:56:53] Victoria: Beautiful disasters. Um, yeah. Well, Tracey, how, how can, uh, people get in touch with you and how can they find moms on mushrooms? 

[00:57:02] Tracey Tee: Yeah, just go to moms on mushrooms.com. Okay. Just go to Moms on Mushroom.

Yeah. . I do have an beautiful, I do have an Instagram account, you know, uh, for, because that's what we have to do. Uh, that's Moms on Mushrooms Official, and I try to post. A couple of times a month and, um, and, uh, joint. Yeah. Join us. We, we've got courses, uh, running throughout the year. Um, there's different, there's different offerings, you know, depending on, you know, we can meet you who you're at.

One thing that's really been fun that we've been doing is moms have been gathering their own friends and creating their own cohorts. And then we'll do a private group with just a circle of friends. And I'm, we're seeing a lot more of that come in of moms. Mom, friends, probably former wine moms, like wanting to go deeper and are those powerful groups to see women who are committed to each other and love and sisterhood and who happened for years, like open up and go even deeper.

It is magical and such a privilege. And if you've got a group of girlfriends that are just looking for something different, give us a ring and we'll set up a, we'll set up a course for you. It's really cool. 

[00:58:16] Victoria: Very cool. Well, we'll, um, we'll link all of your, uh, your sites, um, in the show notes. And, uh, yeah, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with me.

I couldn't think of a better person to chat with on, uh, the eve of International Women's Day. I'm so glad it was you. I'm very honored. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, 

Tracey.