In this honest and uplifting episode of The Moon in Your Mind, Chelsea speaks with Tracey Tee, the powerhouse behind Moms on Mushrooms. Tracey traces her unique path from small-town overachiever to Hollywood up-and-comer, and ultimately to creator of a community where mothers can safely explore microdosing and plant medicine. By weaving in her upbringing, career pivots, and profound spiritual moments, Tracey illustrates what happens when you trust your intuition, step into vulnerability, and allow curiosity to guide your next move.
She shares how she was initially the “good girl” terrified of breaking the rules, yet always felt drawn to the more mystical and unconventional. It was the shock of losing her successful comedy show during the pandemic—and a gentle push from a longtime best friend—that led Tracey to her first mushroom journey. That single trip changed her life, ultimately inspiring her to create Moms on Mushrooms (M.O.M.) to help other mothers navigate the realities of parenting alongside the transformative power of microdosing.
Read Transcript
[00:00:00] Chelsea Winter: Welcome to The Moon in Your Mind. I'm your host, Chelsea Winter. I am on a mission to build a community of empowered individuals to stay curious in their work, their relationships, and daily lives. By interviewing experts in Uniting Astrology and Psychology, I aim to hold the space to connect you to new wisdom, unique stories, and insightful resources for you to cultivate your best human experience.
Let's get curious.
If you're interested in syncing with the universe and reaching your highest potential, then I am so excited to invite you to join my membership. The membership includes a seasonal workbook with daily journal prompts based on the planets, access to my integrating the four elements workbook, and exclusive discounts on natal chart readings.
This is just the beginning, so I'm offering it at the lowest price ever of 4. 99 per month. As the membership grows, the price will increase, so don't wait to lock it in. And right now, I'm even offering a free month just to my listeners. So you can join over on chelseawinterwellness. com for immediate access using the code MOON.
I can't wait to see you over there! Hello, everyone. I am so honored and excited to be speaking with Tracey Tee, the founder of Moms on Mushrooms today. Tracey T has been actively involved in the momosphere for over 10 years, first co creating and starring in the nationally touring cult hit comedy show for moms, The Pump and Dump Show, while simultaneously co producing Band of Mothers podcast and serving as co founder and CEO of The Pump and Dump Show's umbrella brand.
band of mothers media as if that wasn't impressive enough during the pandemic and during her own journey with psilocybin, Tracey began to feel called to support moms in a deeper and more meaningful way. In 2022, she launched an online community and digital microdosing courses created exclusively for moms called M O M, which stands for moms on mushrooms.
Tracey's goal is to bring moms together through the sacred use of plant medicine for a shared journey of personal growth and healing Since its launch in march 2022 Mom has been featured on npr twice. Good morning america the today show piers morgan rolling stone magazine fox news cbs saturday morning nbc news romper magazine cafe mom london times And the guardian and also Tracey did appear on Dr.
Phil to defend the right to heal through microdosing. We'll definitely talk about that. So Tracey has spoken on panels for Rocky Mountain PBS, TAM integration, microdosing collective, and was an invited speaker at the historic maps psychedelic science 2023 conference in Denver. What a bio welcome Tracey. I am so excited to be speaking today.
[00:02:46] Tracey Tee: Thank you. Reads like a true Aries. Yeah.
[00:02:49] Chelsea Winter: Yes. Seriously. Such an Aries. And everything about it wrapped up in other people. There's your Cancer Moon. Yes.
[00:02:57] Tracey Tee: Finally. Thank God I learned that. Not that long ago. And I was like, Oh, that makes sense now. Yeah.
[00:03:03] Chelsea Winter: Oh my gosh. All right. So you're newer to astrology.
So you just learned you had a Cancer Moon. Recently.
[00:03:07] Tracey Tee: It feels like recently. I'm, I am. I think I've. I think I got my first chart read when I was back in 2018. So it's been a minute. But I'm not instinctively, I don't like instinctively absorb astrology like I do other things. So every time I talk about it or learn about it, it's And I know it's layering in somewhere back in my, subconscious, but yeah, so I'm still like very happy to find out that the reason I cry all the time and have big feelings is because of that cancer moon.
And I'm not just a crazy Aries, which is what I've identified this my whole life. Yeah.
[00:03:43] Chelsea Winter: Yeah. Yeah. So Aries, exactly. Like you said, the bio. Reads like an Aries, constantly starting new things, the energy, all that, initiating new things, right? And the idea of you're the leader, you see something that isn't created, you're like, I'm gonna do it.
And that's that. No questions asked.
[00:04:02] Tracey Tee: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's kinda how I roll. It's not anything that I wish that I, it's not anything I wish for, but it's like, there's nothing I can do about it.
[00:04:10] Chelsea Winter: Yeah. Something I've learned doing readings is that as a kid, I feel like Aries are primed to always be getting in trouble, like they have too much energy.
They're not like the quote unquote, good, quiet kid who's just going to sit down and follow directions. And I wonder, you have the cancer moon, which makes you a little more empathetic and you might pick up on other people's energies, but do you resonate with that? How were you as a kid?
[00:04:35] Tracey Tee: I was like such a good kid. So no, I was terrified of getting in trouble. I did do a lot of things. I was a total overachiever. So I was always in all the clubs, I was always getting good grades, I was always getting extra credit, I was always getting nominated to lead things. But I do think that Cancer Moon, and then I also have a lot of Chiron in my chart, so I just feel, I've had a crushing guilt complex.
my whole life. So I think all that empathy that I wasn't aware of until I was in my forties and that very, I feel very deeply like that wounded healer energy. I think that kept the balance of like whenever I did anything good or was elected or won something. I always felt really bad about it and I never really wanted to get any attention, which is ironic because I'm also I, I come from a theater background and I was on stage for 10 years.
So I'm not afraid of the spotlight. I just don't crave it. I And now I'm learning and the mushrooms have really helped with I'm learning that this is like my path and that I have things to say, but it has been a very long journey trusting myself and not feeling bad that I'm sometimes the loudest voice in the room.
So I, and I was also the first daughter. So I think there's a lot of that. So I just, yes, . I really didn't get in trouble that much. I did have a speeding problem. , . I do driving cars fast and and I would say when you were talking about like just getting things done, I feel like my husband would be more the person.
He's totally the guy. Like I'll wake up on a Saturday and I'll just be like, we need to redo the living room. Everything needs to be new and it has to be done by the end of the day. And he's just what? What? So I think as an adult, I'm probably more like that.
[00:06:21] Chelsea Winter: Yeah. Oh my God. That's hilarious. Your husband's what did I get into?
I know. He's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fine. We'll redo the living room. And so you were feeling bad about taking up space and winning the awards. Is that because you were feeling bad that other people weren't? Winning the awards.
[00:06:38] Tracey Tee: Yeah, very much yeah. I remember I was nominated for prom queen and I like prayed that I wouldn't get it.
I prayed I wouldn't get it. And that just sums up all of it.
[00:06:49] Chelsea Winter: Yeah. Oh my gosh. How interesting. Yeah. Interesting. Do you have other planets in cancer or any? planets in your fourth house. Do you know?
[00:06:58] Tracey Tee: Oh gosh, no, I can give you my birth date and you can look it up, but I don't remember. I might all be Aries, but I'm not sure.
[00:07:06] Chelsea Winter: Yeah. I'm just feeling like you have. It's like real empathy for other people. And I feel like that points to maybe there being more than just the Cancer Moon. Maybe. Yeah. Being there. Yeah. I'm sure someone's
[00:07:19] Tracey Tee: told me that. I just don't retain it.
[00:07:22] Chelsea Winter: Hey, it's so much to learn, so much to learn, even about your own.
I'm an astrologer and I feel like I still, every time I look at my chart, I'm like, Part of my chart. Look at that. I guess I should explore that part. Like totally. Yeah, there's always something new So other than being the overachieving first daughter and empathetic thinking about everyone else around You know, how were you as a child?
Where did you grow up? What was your family like, whatever you're comfortable sharing. I'd love to hear about
[00:07:52] Tracey Tee: Yeah, I was, I had a really great childhood. I grew up in the country. Actually, I'm moving back to that area 30 years later, which is insane to me. I swore I would never return.
Just, I'm a good, I'm a good person at closing chapters too. And I was like, okay, I'm done here. Goodbye. And yeah, just grew up in the country, raised in a pretty well, very Christian conservative home, in the peak of the eighties during the Reagan years. And I was a good kid. I have one sister who's younger than me.
I loved to read. I loved to just wander in the fields and collect rocks and sit under trees and I would just wander, we had some acreage and there just wasn't a lot of homes out there when I was growing up, so I would just walk around and I would collect petrified wood and I didn't even realize, back then, like my obsession then.
with rocks. And it leads into my obsession with crystals now. And I loved, as I got older, I loved learning. I was always fascinated by ESP, which is, that's what it was called like back in the eighties, extrasensory perception. I think we've moved on to different terminology, but I remember just looking at books and reading about that.
And that was also during the time of What's her name? The actress, Shirley MacLaine and the out on the limb. And she wrote that book about, I think about transcendental meditation and it was at the peak of the focus on the family year. So I was very influenced by the traditional family values, none of this new age stuff.
But I was always drawn to it. But never really did anything. I always remember being really interested in feng shui when I was like in high school. Like I just always loved a little bit things that were a little off center. Yeah. And I was very musical. I played I was of course first chair of the flute and then I wanted to join jazz band, but they didn't need a flute.
So I was like what else you got in the band teacher was like we have, we need a bass guitar player. And I was like, great. And he gave me a purple bass guitar. My band teacher, and a speaker. And I taught myself how to play the bass one summer in junior high. So then I played the bass and then in high school I decided to join marching band, but I didn't want to play the flute.
And but there was a really cute boy in the tuba section. So I decided to play the tuba and ended up dating the boy. And then, so then, and then we won state in marching band, but I was also a cheerleader. And then I was also like getting leads in the school. plays. So that was just, I was just like that girl and I'm
[00:10:27] Chelsea Winter: rolling my eyes at you, but you should be.
Yeah,
[00:10:30] Tracey Tee: yeah.
[00:10:31] Chelsea Winter: No, but that's incredible. And I just love this ability that you seem to have of When you want to do something, you're going to do it. Seems like nothing really stops you. Once you put your mind to something, learning instruments is not easy. Getting beads into school play, not easy.
And you were being nominated for prom queen all while this is going on.
[00:10:52] Tracey Tee: Yeah. And I never enjoyed any of it. I never enjoyed it. I never relished in it. I always, like I said, I always felt bad. I never felt like I was good enough. I always wanted to be the rebel. I felt the weight of the world. And I think, any number of reasons why, but I wish that I could go back and know how to stand in my power, but that's just not how girls were really raised back then.
It's interesting to raise my daughter much differently. I always had, I was, I'm six feet tall. So I was always very insecure about my height. I was also legally blind when I was in kindergarten. So I'd wear a patch over one eye and then like really thick glasses and I'm left handed. And my kindergarten teacher had to tape my, would tape my paper down and make a point of telling everybody in the class that I was left handed and I was different and then would make a point of me like at one point she made me tell everyone why I had a patch over my eye and I would get made fun of. So I just had this like I was this very like yin and yang like overachiever, crushing, debilitating shame and like doubt, so I just didn't, I can't, it's weird that I'm talking about it like in this moment because it, I'm just very detached from it because I really, and I really don't remember a ton of my youth because I think I was just trying to do the best and just not being very present at all.
[00:12:16] Chelsea Winter: Yeah, that's, they say sometimes if you're, like, highly anxious or anything like that you really, you're not living in the moment, you're always thinking about the what if, and so you're not creating those memories. That other people may be who are in the moment a little bit more.
[00:12:29] Tracey Tee: Yeah. And I wish that I was I was allowed to, or someone had guided me to understand what that means.
[00:12:35] Chelsea Winter: But grateful for it now. Yes. Yes. You got it in your life. Eventually. Yeah. Okay. So when you graduate high school, did you go to college?
[00:12:44] Tracey Tee: I went to college. I went to a small liberal arts college in Michigan, another very conservative organization.
And then I was a Kappa Gamma and an officer and got really good grades and was in the theater department. I double majored in theater and English. Last semester of my senior in college, I went over to England and taught at a boarding school Like taught theater and directed the school play at this like Very fancy boarding school.
[00:13:13] Chelsea Winter: Wow.
[00:13:13] Tracey Tee: And yeah, so not much really changed in college. I think I let loose a bit more, but I still, and I always still felt like the black sheep. I felt like the black sheep of the Kappa house. I was too preppy for the theater nerds and too nerdy for the pretty preppy Kappa girls. And in the middle I was just like, who wants to have fun, so yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:36] Chelsea Winter: Yeah. I feel like college is It's so interesting, right? And you speaking about your experiences bringing up so many things for me, too. I'm the oldest daughter. I was in a sorority. I feel like I always wanted to be a little bit more artsy than I really was. I definitely did not fit into the sorority.
I was in Delta Gamma. Definitely did not fit there. Yeah, it's so interesting in college. There's so many ways to explore who you are. But I feel like if we're still stuck in our high school minds, or even younger mindset, of that overachiever, I need to be doing everything, you're still just repeating the same thing, right?
You're still trying to be friends with the same people, trying to impress the same people, trying to get over that, the black sheep shadow that you had before, that still exists.
[00:14:22] Tracey Tee: Totally.
[00:14:23] Chelsea Winter: Unfortunately. Yeah,
[00:14:24] Tracey Tee: a hundred percent.
[00:14:25] Chelsea Winter: But I think it all makes sense. So you, Leave college.
You have this theater degree. You have the English degree. Is that when you started your podcast? What happens in between there because it sounds like your podcasts really took off
[00:14:38] Tracey Tee: Yeah, that was much later after college All I wanted to do was to move to LA and start being an actress But my sister my younger sister had gotten engaged while she was in college very young and was planning to be married.
So instead I moved back home to Colorado and to marry my sister and be the good daughter and the good sister. So I went back to Colorado for a couple of years and then. My then boyfriend now husband and I eventually did move to California and then to Los Angeles. And so I did the acting thing, but then I also, I got a really great job at HBO and the media relations department.
And I feel like that was really like the biggest turning point for me. I stumbled in as a temp into HBO and I was hired to like, Lick literally lick envelopes and put on stamps for I think it was like the sex in the city premiere and I was in this tiny closet. Maybe it was like four feet by four feet for like days putting and I, but I showed up in like a suit every day and I was, I think I was obviously polite.
And at the end of it, they asked me if I wanted to stay on because they had other temporary needs. And so I ended up just like working there while I did my acting, did auditions and took classes and took improv classes. And the women in that department in media relations, it was like at the height of sex in the city, the Sopranos, like peak HBO, when HBO really had its moment.
And those women were Hollywood veterans and they really took me under their wing and just showed me just by example of strong, independent, successful women at the top of their game. I learned so much about the entertainment industry, about event planning. I don't know so many things. And that was really, I think when my business brain started to kick in and I really was modeled, like I felt like I had mentors.
And then through all of that I just realized like I didn't really love. Auditioning and sitting on set for hour and hour, hours and hours. I just, Hollywood just really wasn't for me. I, and again, like same thing, Goal Achiever. I decided I needed my SAG card. I wanted it by this date. I think it was Valentine's day of, I can't remember what year, but I got my SAG card the day before.
I set my goal and I got some big part on, not big part, but I was an alien on Star Trek for many days and I had full body makeup and that's how I got my SAG card and it was like exactly on the goal that I had set for myself. And then after a while, I was just like, I don't think this, I don't think this is for me.
I realized that I'm a team player, but it needs to be on my team. And so I just didn't love being told to move to the right and stand and stare. It just wasn't my jam. So that's when I, but I loved living in Los Angeles with my boyfriend, then he was my fiance, and then eventually we got married back in Colorado and then lived there as married couple before we moved back to Denver.
Right around, I think now my Saturn return, I think I was right around turning 30, maybe a little bit 29 or 28. I started my first business and I realized I had all these friends that were artists and creatives and makers and Nobody had any money and nobody knew what to do with it. I was like I can, I can't make any of that stuff, but I know I can sell it and I'm a good writer.
And so I did a pre Etsy and paid a guy who was a photographer, with ice cream to build a really bad website. And I would just sell like art and design from LA designers and artists. And it became like really, I don't know, it was pretty fun. I sold a bunch of art and different wares and we would host art parties.
And eventually that moved into an, a full flown e commerce company that I merged with a partner, a woman who I met in Los Angeles. And we moved that, that was right in my Saturn return. Cause we moved back to Denver when I was 30. And then I had this big, Ecom company. And we did that for about four or five years.
And then the 2000, I guess it was more than that. I don't know. Right around 2008. Yeah. Cause I moved to LA or Denver in 2006, right around 2008 the market crashed and it took the sale out of a lot of e commerce companies. And that was at the rise of Groupon and all these deal of the day sites.
And we got blasted, but then I also got pregnant in 2010. And so I'm probably convoluting the dates, but all that to say, we shut that down. I got pregnant. Then I became a consultant. For a while after I had my baby and then I started the pump and dump show with my best friend from the eighth grade when she moved back to Colorado.
So I've had many lives.
[00:19:19] Chelsea Winter: Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my God. I'm like, all right, I want to talk about all of them. Yeah. But I actually, so I want to go back maybe even further. So you mentioned you grew up in a more conservative household. You went to a more conservative college, but you were always interested in more of for lack of a better term, like hippie things, I feel like.
And then it sounds like you moved to LA and you were surrounding yourself by artists. So do you feel like when you moved to LA that allowed you to explore that side of yourself a little bit more or, what did that look like for you? Yeah.
[00:19:48] Tracey Tee: I think it did by default. I was just in that space, but I was also very G rated and I never, I don't think I ever really I still had very traditional conservative kind of.
Thoughts and values. And so those really dictated a lot of my decision making. And so again, I was like always on the outside looking in like we would go to these like downtown art parties that were so cool before like downtown LA became so glossy and hip and like in old drippy warehouses and with all these crazy avant garde people.
And I never had any problem. Commingling or hanging out, but I was just a little, I always just felt like I was a little bit on the outside looking at. So I don't think, again, looking back and I think that held me back a little bit, even in my acting career, I was really successful training at the groundlings and kept moving up, which is an improv training place and has put out some of the greatest.
It's comedians of our time. Not that I was one of them, but I was there training and I kept moving up and up. And, but I think I always just held myself back because I didn't want to be offensive. Or I didn't want to be too edgy because then what would that say about me? I wasn't a proper woman.
And so it was definitely always lingering in my mind and looking back and reflecting. Now I see how I really held myself back that, if I could do it over again, I would have been a little bit more bold and exploratory. I think.
[00:21:15] Chelsea Winter: That makes sense. And then, when did you start to really fully be embodied, in yourself?
When did you really embrace all of this? Was it with The Mushrooms? Was it with your, the podcast, The Pump and Dump Show? What, when do you really feel like you were like, Alright, this is me. I'm gonna step into it. And Fuck all what everyone thinks.
[00:21:34] Tracey Tee: Yeah, I think the pump and I'm show was the beginning.
Shana Brian or Shana firm, sorry, Shana firm. My best friend, she's a brilliant comedian and our daughters are three weeks apart and she had moved back from, so when we we went to junior high and high school together, separated, went to, she went to college in Chicago. I was in Michigan, so we would see each other during college.
Then when we graduated, she went to New York to pursue acting and. I went to Los Angeles and so we have this like 10 year gap where we didn't really see her talks. There wasn't social media or anything back then.
[00:22:07] Chelsea Winter: Right.
[00:22:08] Tracey Tee: And she ended up moving back to Denver as one does in their thirties when you realize that you can't live anywhere, that you can store toilet paper.
And and so we realized over Facebook that we were both pregnant at the same time and then we had babies at the same time. And so then we started, like when she moved back home, we started having playdates. And then she was so hungry for something to do creatively when we had this tiny little girls and she was already pregnant with her second.
She had this idea to start this show. She was in the shower and she had just gotten off some like mother lifts listserv and where people were like freaking out over, my kid ate a cracker that wasn't organic. And I don't know if I baby proofed my whole house and my child won't brush his teeth without crying.
What do I do? And she was just like, Oh my gosh, everyone just needs to like. Have a glass of wine and have a break and she pitched this idea like what if we did a show just like laughing about parenting and we were so young and such new mothers and so tired ourselves, but we like. wrote this show and just started it at a bar.
And she's an amazing musician. So she was like churning out these really funny songs, totally original, not even parodies, like full whole comedic songs. And we just through this show together in the throes of new parenthood. And the first night that we, and we like put some posters up in the neighborhood and the first night, 75 women showed up to the show.
And we were like, what? I think we didn't even know what we were doing. And then the second we went back a month later and the manager of the bar was like, I walked in and he was all wide eyed. He was like people have been calling all day asking for reservations for like groups of 15 and groups of 10 women.
He goes, we're a bar. We don't even take reservations. We don't know where to put everyone. And so that it launched so fast and we quickly left the bar. Then we went to this really amazing cabaret space in Denver sold out every month. To the rafters, then added a second show, like 30 minutes south of downtown Denver at a really prestigious comedy club.
And we sold that out. So we're selling out two shows a month. And then we eventually started touring because people were hearing about it and they were telling their friends and friends from out of state were like, you need to come to California. We want to see this comedy show. And it was very brass. Shana is definitely I credit her for bringing me out of my shell a lot because she is just has R rated sense of humor.
She's genius. She's hysterical and she really just isn't afraid to tell a joke and I got swept up in that and she gave me permission to just show up on stage and make people laugh and stand behind a funny joke that is raw and raunchy and hilarious. And with a lot of love. And so that, that was a big exercise for me and, going for almost 10 years in front of sold out audiences.
Coast to coast, and we went on the today show, we, it was crazy. And then we started a podcast. And so I was really coming out of my shell, but it really wasn't until I turned 40. And I can tell you the day I turned 40. Maybe five days later, because the day I turned 40 actually was doing a show in Columbus, Ohio.
We were so busy. A week later, I was at dinner with some friends with a girlfriend who had a similar birthday, a close birthday. And I remember sitting there at this fancy restaurant, like so fucking tired, just burnt out. I had a kid. I had this big show. I had been touring for years. I was drinking a ton.
And I remember just looking around the restaurant and I was like, There's gotta be something more. And I realized in that moment, I was like, I'm not even using my brain anymore, even though I'm in this deeply creative endeavor. I didn't feel like I was using my creative brain and I didn't feel like I knew who I was.
And it was just like one of those. epiphanies that just comes out of nowhere while you're sitting with friends at a restaurant. And from that day, that like really launched me being curious and asking what else is out there? Who am I? Why am I here? How can I be better? What's wrong with me? All the big questions that I think a lot of women actually ask when they turn 40.
There's just something about that age. You've got enough dirt under your nails from the last two decades of adulthood to have some context. and you're young enough to say, I got a whole life ahead of me and I want to do this my way. And that really set me down a path. And that's really where my whole spiritual journey started.
And then over the course of the next seven years, I had profound spiritual experiences, profound epiphanies. profound tragedies and loss and awakenings, all of which eventually led me to doing my first psychedelic journey with Shana, of course, because who else would force me to do drugs? Cause I'd never done drugs.
Of course not. Like I could never do drugs. Yeah, no, you were the good girl. I was a good girl. I did smoke weed. It's Colorado, but like never touched anything. All my friends who were doing ecstasy and everything in college never did anything all my years bartending in Los Angeles and people were doing, Lines of Coke on the bars, never touched it.
And then I'm 44 years old and I go on a camping trip with some other moms and eat a handful of dried mushrooms. And my life changed forever. So that's
[00:27:35] Chelsea Winter: my story. Best friends are four. We love her. We love her. Brought you on to do the pump and dump show. Now she's force feeding you mushrooms. No, I shouldn't say forcing.
Cause I know that. It's not how it was, but
[00:27:48] Tracey Tee: Gently urging her actual words were Tracey, I'd like you to come on this camping trip and you're going to put on your big girl pants and you're going to eat some mushrooms. And I was like, okay.
[00:27:59] Chelsea Winter: Yes. Oh, we love it. We love it. Wow. And just how one, I guess how powerful do you have a friendship like that and to reconnect with her in your thirties when you're having your children at the same time. That's so special. And I think it also, the way that you are talking about, you sold out your first.
Show or 75 people came to your first show and no one even knew what it was gonna be I think that just shows how badly people needed something like that and how badly I think your friend said sit down and have a glass of wine like how badly people needed that mental reprieve and also to be like Okay, motherhood I'm not a mother, so I'm totally speaking probably out of turn, but how can we take a break from this?
How can we make this a little more light hearted? Does everything need to be so serious? Yeah,
[00:28:44] Tracey Tee: yeah, no, it's totally true, and it's also interesting. Because we really gave people we, we always said that we were the jerks that said everything that everyone else was thinking, and all we ever really said was this shit is hard.
We just admitted that it was hard and that you can still be a good mom and deeply die for your children and still not love it every minute of the day. And that was we were just at the right place at the right time. No one was really doing it. I think that's changed quite a bit over the last 10 years for sure, and people are much more open, Instagram was just barely a thing.
Facebook was still figuring itself out. And so we had this opportunity to be like a voice and it was just, yeah we provided a space to let the pressure out of the tire. And what we always said was like, laugh at the things that we have in common. And at the end of the day, if you're the crunchy mom, who's You know, breastfeeding your kids till they're 44 and, only eat kale.
Or if you're the mom that gave her kid McDonald's when they were six months old, like at the end of the day, we're still all wiping butts and there's, there is some commonalities there that can let us maybe stop being a little judgy and just realize that we're all doing the best we can.
[00:29:58] Chelsea Winter: Yeah. And I think that carries through not just being a mother.
Everyone is always just doing the best they can.
[00:30:07] Tracey Tee: Yeah. And sometimes also you're not, I think that's what the mushrooms have really showed me is okay, let's also be honest when you're phoning it in, and that's true. That's true. There's power in admitting that about yourself.
There's power in admitting where you're failing or where you're lacking maybe is a better word. And there's power. Thank God for Brene Brown, right? There's power and vulnerability. And for me, that was a big lesson I learned from Brene Brown is that I'm allowed to be vulnerable and going back through this whole story of my like pseudo perfect life.
I was really never Like I felt very scared to be wrong, to apologize, all those big things because it felt very scary. That's vulnerability. And once I learned, and it took many years to crack my heart open. And again, I do credit mushrooms for that really pushing me to the finish line. I realized that vulnerability is all you can be.
And that, yeah. There's nothing wrong with apologizing or real or making mistakes or being wrong or screwing up. It's what you do with that information that defines who you are. And I think, carrying that into motherhood is very liberating because then you just don't have to be perfect. You can just do the best you can and lead with love and lead with your heart and honesty and, let the chips fall where they may.
Yeah.
[00:31:22] Chelsea Winter: So that kind of brings me to my next question. So you.
Do mushrooms on that camping trip, you have sounds like an incredible experience, which I would love to hear even more about that. But then. Then you say, okay, now I'm going to create MOM, Moms on Mushrooms, like, how do you go from, you're scared of drugs, you've never taken drugs, you do the mushrooms, and now this is your new business, and you're, obviously you're carrying through the values of motherhood and what you were doing with your previous show, now it's just through a different lens, but take me through that journey.
[00:32:11] Tracey Tee: Yeah this is like a classic tale of a I call myself like a type A ascender, right? I'm Aries, so like I had this awakening, but I'm going to do it in half the time as everyone else, and I'm going to do it bigger than everyone else. Yeah. And I, that's not because I wanted to, it's just my path.
And we were on that camping trip because of the lockdowns and I was open to mushrooms because we had lost the pump and dump show in 2020 when the lockdowns happened, we had within two weeks had to cancel basically 100 shows and we lost what was a 10 year business. We watched it slip through our fingers like sand like it had never mattered and we could never get back on our feet.
We lost ridiculous amounts of money. The loss was beyond palpable. And much of the country was getting these PPE loans and the entire arts and entertainment industry was just left out to dry. And we had nothing and we lost everything. And we're, we would only get paid when we showed up to do a show, but how can you get paid to do a show when no one can leave their house and no one can get on a plane and planes are all being canceled.
It was just, it was ridiculous. So there was a ton of grief. And for me that's where my real big awakening happened, was in within that summer, I had this just massive shift in my awareness.
[00:33:28] Chelsea Winter: And how does that fit into that dinner when you were 40? When you turned 40, how did, where does that dinner fit into this?
[00:33:36] Tracey Tee: It was the start. It was the beginning, it was the beginning of asking the why questions. And then I was sitting, it was June 24th, 2020. And I was sitting in my living room and my husband and my daughter were like cleaning up in the kitchen. It was after dinner and I was just sitting there.
And I, and all of a sudden I was like, I thought I felt like I was floating out of my body and I thought I'm going to, I'm just going to float out of this house. Like I'm going to, I, what is happening? Like I felt like I was leaving my body and for some reason my journal was like lying on the couch and I crawled over to my journal and I just wrote.
I'm either on the verge of a spiritual awakening or I'm about to have a psychotic breakdown. And I didn't even know what those words were. Like even for the years prior from the forties, I was like, Oh, show me, I'll get my, I'll get my chart read or I'll do some tarot cards or astrology.
And I was doing all the things and I was interested in everything. And I was doing, Lacey Phillips inner child work and asking some big questions, but I didn't really understand. And in that moment, I just. Like it was like a whole, like I just jumped a whole timeline and a girlfriend of mine that next day just happened to text out of the blue.
And I was still very much in this like woozy out of my body experience. And she was like, Hey, Tracey, I just thinking about you. I'm just wondering how you're doing. And she was the only person that I had thought that night. of anyone who I could call, who could tell me because she was, she's this amazing very genius, like spiritual coach.
And out of the blue, she just texted me. And so when I told her what happened, that started six months of her really mentoring me and pulling me out of this hole and teaching me the ways of, waking up. And so all that to say, all the breadcrumbs were being laid up into that point. And that's what opened me up enough to say yes to psychedelics.
Because in the middle of all of that, I was also reading a ton. I'm a reader. I'm a writer. So I was reading, I read Michael Pollan's book. I had been, Curious about ayahuasca for years and years before, like secretly, but just thought I could never do that. Like I could never do that.
[00:35:49] Chelsea Winter: I remember
[00:35:49] Tracey Tee: I went to Paul Stamets and saw him speak by myself in 2018 just to hear him talk about mushrooms because I was And I was like I'll just learn about it.
And maybe like when I'm old and crazy, I'll go do it. And all of that just led to that moment of saying yes. And I was just open enough at that time to receive the messages. And then after that big journey. with my friends. I was hooked. Then I started microdosing because it made a ton of sense to me. And I actually talked to my functional medicine doctor about it.
And she was like, yeah, you should do it, but I just can't tell you how. And so I started microdosing and very quickly, like. All the puzzle pieces just came into place. My head, I became clear. I became under, I understood who I was. And then about a year later after that, I was shown in another journey.
I was absolutely shown this is why the pump and dump show existed so that you understand mothers. This is why you had trouble getting pregnant. So you, and you have one baby because you have compassion for mothers and how hard it is. All of this is leading us to this moment now, where we, it's time to start talking about all these things we were laughing about in the olden times.
And now it's time to get serious. We need to heal. And that was the message that was given to me. And it all led to this moment of creating mom.
[00:37:12] Chelsea Winter: Yeah, that's, that is incredible. Oh, so powerful. So powerful the way it all lines up and just, yeah, I feel like mushrooms, the medicine, plant medicine it knows.
It knows like when to show up. And also you need to be open to it. How many times do, I think about myself, so I microdose as well. And I think about how many times did like someone in my life say, Oh, do you want to do mushrooms? My, my brother does mushrooms, has done them before.
And I'm like, Oh my God no. And then, yeah, just my boyfriend brought it up once was like, all right, I think I'm going to start microdosing. I read these studies and I was like, Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'll try it. I'll try it too. I think I'm ready. The 20 times I was offered it before I wasn't, but yeah.
Okay. That sounds good.
[00:37:53] Tracey Tee: Totally. And then that's the day your life changes potentially, and we all make those choices and it's the mushrooms. It's absolutely the mushrooms for me, but it's also God. Like I also, my Christian upbringing that hasn't left, like my relationship with the divine is more profound than ever.
The way I'm. relearning about Jesus and Christ and God and what that means and mother earth and the great mother, like that was always with me too. And so I know I was always protected. And then I did have a plan and that God was like, did see something in me that was unique and special. I just had to see it for myself.
And that's where the mushrooms came in. Yeah.
[00:38:36] Chelsea Winter: So how has it been then? Since watching Mom has the feedback been I have a feeling I know probably mostly positive But also just even looking at your Instagram I mean you've had to go on some pretty big name type of shows defend it teach about it You know, how has that been I guess how do you even prepare for that you go from being someone who?
Microdoses on your own and now you're a face of microdosing. How has that been?
[00:39:05] Tracey Tee: Yeah, I didn't really see that coming like at all. Like I was like, Oh, just teach some moms, some classes. And then it just, it got real big, real fast. And all I can say about that is. I think this is where my like Chiron wounded healer comes in.
For about a year or before I was I had gone to some readings, I'd gotten some different readings. And one of the consistent themes was like, Oh, I see life coach in your future. I see You know, leader or teacher in the future. And I was like, what? No, thank you. Never what would I like, what would I teach?
So you didn't resonate with me at all. And then I was meditating one day and. M. O. M. Moms on mushrooms is landed in my head. It just came into my head. I think I have Claire cognizance. So I like here. See, feel things. I just I have like my family jokes like we joke about it when I'm like decorating a new room like You have the vision.
Like I get the vision. Shana used to say that all the time. She's Oh God, you had a vision. Okay. We'll try to do that. So MOM just came to me and I sat up and I was like that's genius. Certainly someone's thought of it and no one had. And I was like, Fuck. I don't want to do that.
And I said no for so long in prayer, mostly. Like I just remember being down on the floor in my office, like literally on my floor, like praying no. Who am I? Can't someone else do this? Please. Somebody else, and I, how could I possibly, I don't even know that much, and over.
And then finally one day I just decided to say yes. And that was a lot had to do with a large dose journey, and really zipping up there to the cosmos and having those big conversations. And I, I said yes. And I tell you the minute I said, yes, everything changed. It's like my life went into overdrive and it all just fell into place.
And I think much like the pump it up show, I think I just happened to be right place, right time. And if we're going to bring this whole bizarre story that I'm spilling out to you full circle, I think having one foot in each space, right? Being a mother, but also being a performer, but also being a leader, but like definitely not like a burning man, quote unquote, Coachella, psychedelic, nymph, I just, I look like this, like I live in Denver.
I'm a mom. I think having a foot in all of those different dimensions allowed me to speak a language that most people can understand. And I think that has been. my vibe like my whole life and I just didn't realize it. And so I finally just decided to trust and not question it and just let God lead.
And all I can do is check myself before I wreck myself and just check, you do enough drugs, your ego becomes very clear when it shows up in a bad way. And I'm just like, okay, keep her. Keep her on the level and just check it before I wreck it. And as long as I keep saying yes to the things that I feel are an integrity that are in it from a space of love and compassion, my mission became very clear.
What I wanted to do became very clear, realizing that I truly did want to be of service. And then looking back at all these businesses and saying even when I was selling things, I was trying to help. Artists and designers get off the feet cause I knew how talented they were. And then when I was on the public show, I just wanted to make moms happy and make them feel seen.
And so all of that was leading to this moment of service, just in a completely different, in a different way, but in my way. And so then it just, It became easy and also very hard. Like I work a lot and it's difficult, but so going on to TV shows, it might seem like I'm being brave or courageous, but honestly, the prayer I say before I do anything now is I pray to God to guide me and ground me.
And I just pray to be guided and grounded and from there I just speak the truth and it really doesn't have anything to do with me at all has nothing to do with me and releasing that has released a lot of the guilt because I know I'm in service to the divine and to women and to mothers. And to my child and to the children of the world in our own way, in our own corner of the world, this is my way of helping moms.
There's a million ways. And that makes things very easy. You get real clear when you realize that kind of stuff.
[00:43:38] Chelsea Winter: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. What piece of advice would you have for a mom who is thinking about microdosing but is unsure? One piece of advice or one sentence for them?
[00:43:50] Tracey Tee: Yeah. Just remain curious.
And empower yourself with knowledge. Just start there. Ask why, and learn.
[00:43:58] Chelsea Winter: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, and I feel something else you said that I think just It's so important is there are good parts to this and bad parts to this, but I think everyone wants to be an influencer right now, right?
Everyone is like speaking above their, of what they really know, you feel like you have to be this type of person and I'll raise my hand. Like I do it too. Like you feel like you need to look a certain way or speak a certain way about mushrooms or astrology or wellness in general.
I think there's such a renaissance. And the social media component brings this whole other part to it. And so I think just listening to you speak and your social media, I think it does resonate with so many people because it is so real and it doesn't feel like I need to know all of these things to Get curious.
I don't need to come into it as It's the expert already, it's okay that we don't know things. It's okay that to keep being curious, I think your social media space and I think, moms on mushrooms makes it feel very safe to come in and just say I don't know what I'm doing.
Let me join. Let me take this course. This is not for experts. This is not level 10 micro dosing, but no, this is level one. And this is. Start here and see where you go.
[00:45:10] Tracey Tee: Yeah. Thank you for seeing that. I think a lot of that just comes with age. Like I'm in my late forties now and I just don't give a, I don't give a fuck.
Like I don't have the energy to be an influencer. I love my family. I love my life. I don't need the attention. And also I have things to say. And we are in a unique moment right now where people like yourself, many people, most people. Have really great things to say, right? And we have this unique opportunity to hear thousands, if not millions of different voices.
But the key component that is missing right now on both sides of the screen, right on the people creating the content and on the people receiving the content is discernment. And learning discernment is a art, I believe, and it is not taught in schools. We don't teach our children. And I don't think many of us were learned to even understand what that is.
But discernment is, does this resonate with me and my values and what I care about? And again, that goes both ways. So creating content, I just, all I have to do is ask myself is this an integrity? And is this in my values? And if I, and am I saying this because I need a hit of validation or am I saying this because I want to help someone?
And I think the, I know, we all know what it feels like to have words that are true. You feel it in your body. And if you just focus on those words, yeah. And you don't put up the other ones, even if it won't, even if you're skinny as hell and you look great and it's great, you just don't do it because it's not gonna, it's not gonna fly.
And then on the receiving end, you don't have to consume everyone's individual opinion, stick with the people who resonate with you. And even they are infallible, like just take what lands with you and leave the rest. And when you just land there, then everything just gets a little easier.
Now, are there pressures? And do I get pressure from my, business advisors and people say, Oh, you should have this many more people, or you should do this, or you should make more of this. And I'm just like, maybe, but I'm only one woman and I'm only just going to do what feels right. And every time I don't, It flops, it's just not received as well, whatever that is, whether it's writing or a course or if anytime I feel like I'm pushing something it doesn't land versus just following your discernment.
[00:47:29] Chelsea Winter: What a good reminder to everybody. Not don't push it. Follow what feels right.
[00:47:36] Tracey Tee: Yeah. And for Christ's sake, don't follow the algorithm. Oh my God. Yeah.
[00:47:40] Chelsea Winter: Especially if you're in the wellness space. My God. Oh my gosh.
[00:47:43] Tracey Tee: Especially if you're in the psychedelic space, you know what I'm like, I'm going to write the word microdosing, I'm not, I'm like that stuff.
And this is my Aries ness. This is my stubbornness and also my age. I'm just like. You can't tell me that I can't write psychedelic. If you're going to suppress me, I know that there's something greater that is going to make that be shown. That's how woo I've gotten. But it's ridiculous to succumb to.
Yeah, the wellness is what you can and cannot do from some unknown board somewhere that's deciding how and why and when we can speak to each other. It's ridiculous.
[00:48:17] Chelsea Winter: Yep. Yep. So I guess that brings me to the question, where can people find you then on social media, your courses? How can people stay in touch with you and moms on mushrooms?
[00:48:30] Tracey Tee: Thank you. Yeah I'm obviously not on social a ton . Yeah. So we're just really on Instagram. Moms on mushrooms official and, but really everything is on our website. Moms on mushrooms.com and the real core of what we do, the foundational we do offer, we have evergreen courses, self-paced that you can just purchase very affordably and read yourself.
in the middle of the night and just learn about microdosing or macrodosing. Then we have a three and a half month small group course that is our foundational course that is truly transformative and you're held by a wing woman and you're supported and it's really created not to teach you how to microdose, but to again, allow that discernment and intuition to come in, come back into your life.
And while you peel back the onion layers that microdosing tends to reveal in a small group of other like minded women who have a shared commonality of being mothers, because that's just, let's just start there as at least something that we have in common. But then we have a private community membership.
It's only two bucks a month and it's off social media. There's no algorithms. There's no advertisers. It's just us moms. And that's. That's really the vision of, what I was shown is to build this garden and learn from each other. We don't need another guru. We certainly don't need me yakking and telling everybody what to do.
We just need, I just need to provide the space for us to learn from each other. So that is called the grow and it's welcome to all moms, whether you've. never even dreamed or can't even fathom that you might try a psychedelic or, maybe you've been working in the space for decades underground and have never found your community.
This is the place to bring those two together. And It's beautiful to watch how women just learn from each other. So that's what we offer.
[00:50:14] Chelsea Winter: Amazing. Amazing. And I'll link everything in the show notes and post on social media, hype you up. But yeah, no, it all just sounds incredible.
And I think they're, it's just, There's something so special about a space where, it's exactly like you were talking about earlier. At the end of the day, you all white butts, right? As a mom. So there's something so special about finding a space where you know you have something in common with every single person in that group.
It's rare. To really have that or yeah, maybe not as rare as we think, but I think rare to realize it.
[00:50:45] Tracey Tee: Yeah. Yeah, maybe. And also just acknowledge that it's special, it's okay that we all have something in common, it's cool. And then inside that we're all uniquely different, but yeah.
Yeah.
[00:50:58] Chelsea Winter: So we end every episode. I always love to. Here about curiosity, and we've already talked about curiosity a little bit We've mentioned it a few times, but I love to ask, why is curiosity important? And what are you curious about right now?
[00:51:15] Tracey Tee: Everything I'm curious about everything. I'm really always curious about psychedelics, I love plants and plant medicine and I have for A long time.
So I'm always curious about what the great mother just can give us to heal ourselves. Psychedelic and non psychedelic, right? And theogenic and non. So I'm always just. reading about flowers and herbs and trees and hugging trees and talking to trees and Dreaming about what I can plant in a garden. And so I'm always curious about that I'm
[00:51:45] Chelsea Winter: are you gonna have a nice garden now that you're moving out of the city?
Is that part of the plan
[00:51:49] Tracey Tee: of the plan? You know the country though comes with its own There's a lot of deer and deer just eat everything. So more looking into a geodesic like greenhouse dome Which might be a couple years in the making when we Figure out how to get that on the land. But eventually yes.
Or maybe just grow. We have an unfinished basement, so it just might be a lot of grow lights down in the basement. Yeah,
[00:52:11] Chelsea Winter: Thank you so much. This was incredible and yeah. Thank you for sharing your story. All your knowledge. I loved learning about it. I'm sure the listeners will to thank you for
[00:52:22] Tracey Tee: having me.
This is delightful, appreciate it.
[00:52:26] Chelsea Winter: Thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and review if you loved this episode as much as I did. Be the first to know about new episodes by following me on Instagram and TikTok at chelseawinterwellness or sign up for my newsletter to stay up to date with everything astrology and a chance to win a free reading at chelseawinterwellness.
com. See you next time and stay curious.