Zen(ish) Mommy

During this season, we’ve talked about a number of alternative healing modalities. Today’s guest is Tracey Tee, co-founder and CEO of Band of Mothers Media and creator of Moms on Mushrooms, a micro-dosing course made exclusively for moms. With over ten years of experience in the mom sphere, Tracey has recently created an intimate, sacred space for mothers to explore the use of plant medicine.

Join us to hear what she has to say about the difference between traditional healing modalities, recreational drug use, and microdosing in order to go inward and begin a healing journey. You’ll learn how Tracey navigated difficult changes in her own life with the support of psilocybin, and how plant medicine works to repattern the triggering aspects of the brain. Tracey shares advice from her own journey and research, reminding us of our skewed attitudes towards drugs based on the government’s approval, and encourages listeners to open their minds to this powerful healing modality today. Thanks for tuning in.

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[00:00:00] Jessica Gershman: Hey, it's your Zen Mommy here, Jessica Nicole. So our health and wellness doesn't look like it used to. As you may have noticed, I've been super into sharing alternative medicine modalities this season on the podcast. I want to give you guys all the information and modalities that are out there to educate and inform all of you so that you can make the best decision for your own health.

And the truth is you may not even know what alternatives are available. This is not the sixties and you will not find Timothy Leary on your local street corner peddling LSD. But what you will find is a mom on a mission to educate and inform you on the potentials of plant medicine. Welcome

to the Zen ish mommy podcast. I'm your host Jessica Gershman. And while I may never reach enlightenment, you will find me here cussing and laughing along the way. This podcast is a place for all women to connect. Educate themselves and slow down because you deserve a moment to pause and press play. I want to welcome to the show, my next guest, Tracey Tee is the co founder and CEO of Band of Mothers Media and creator of Moms on Mushrooms or MOM.

A microdosing course created exclusively for moms. Tracey has worked timelessly in the mom's fear for over 10 years and has recently taken a deeper, more intentional pivot to create an intimate, sacred space for mothers to explore personal growth, transformation and healing through the sacred use of plant medicine.

Tracey is a mama just like all of us and she has an 11 year old daughter at home. She's been married for 20 years and she believes in the power of mushroom. Let's hear what she has to say.

Hey Tracey, welcome to this show, a mom on mushrooms. Yes, thank you. So what exactly does it mean to be a mom on mushrooms? 

[00:02:11] Tracey Tee: Great question. Are you on mushrooms right now? I did not microdose today actually. No. So yeah, what I offer is a microdosing course and we can get into the nitty gritty of what that means specifically.

But throughout my own plant medicine journey, I really felt like the experience of plant medicine, of healing of self transformation of going inward. It's just so different when you're a mom, your healing happens between soccer practice and ballet pickup. You don't get to go to the Amazon jungle for 15 days and do ayahuasca and leave your children.

It's just, some people do, and that's amazing, but most of us have to squeeze in self reflection in little pockets of time. And so what I wanted to do is create a microdosing course. And so microdosing for me is using subperceptual amounts of psilocybin, which is magic mushrooms, and create a course around the plant medicine so that you a have a community so you can Watch your transformation against other people and talk about it together and then learn together.

And I created a course that feels hopefully not too overwhelming because that's the other thing. There's so many amazing courses out there, but again, who has the time? So I tried to do something that was simple, not overwhelming and supportive for moms. So that's what it means to be a mom on mushroom. 

[00:03:38] Jessica Gershman: I love it.

And we can get into all of that, but let's dial it back a little bit. What is your position with drugs and alcohol just 

[00:03:45] Tracey Tee: as a person? Wow. I love that question. So it's really evolved. I don't do drugs, even though I love mushrooms. I've never done, I'm from Denver, so of course I've smoked weed. I don't even really smoke weed socially.

Definitely use it for sleep. But besides that, I've never done anything. I think the first joint I smoked was in college and I'm just not a big drug user. I've never tried any of it. Alcohol, I've drank most of my adult life and I would say in the last year, my alcohol consumption has really evolved and a lot of that has to do with the shrooms.

Definitely when I was a mom and a new mom, I went straight to Chardonnay for years. And I guess it served me, looking back, I think there's a much healthier way to deal with your pain, but since I started the plant medicine, I just don't have the need to drink anymore. I don't really want to drink anymore.

And in terms of drugs, that's a really interesting definition because. What are drugs? We try to talk to this about our to our daughter, right? She hears the word drugs, and we're talking about grandma having to take her diabetes medication, or we're talking about Advil, or we're talking about heroin, or we're talking about fentanyl on the street.

There's such a broad spectrum, or we're talking about even psilocybin. People consider that a drug. I prefer to call it plant medicine because I think that's what it really is, but I've become much more Open to the idea of drugs if they're plant based, because there's so many modalities that have been around our earth for so long, mostly supported by original cultures that we're just scared of, we're skeptical of, and we're just ignorant about.

So I would say I like drugs, if I could say it in a soundbite, and booze, I think there's a place for it. I say that now I look at drinking alcohol is again, more of a ceremony. So now I approach it as what is the why behind it? Am I going to a glass of wine at five o'clock because I just can't because of the day, or am I sitting with my husband or my best friends in this beautiful meal and have this amazing, delicious bottle of red French wine.

And it's like a of itself. I'm fine with that. That's my very long definition. 

[00:06:12] Jessica Gershman: No, I love it. And there's so much to unpack there, but I haven't really thought about the word drugs because it really does have so many different connotations and drugs are used to heal people. And then we have the whole big pharma and pharmaceutical drugs.

And it feels like we're shying away just as a culture of saying, you know what? We've been inundated with pharmaceuticals for so long. We've reached our fill. We're eye deep in pharmaceuticals. And we're taking a step back, at least what it feels culturally. To me that we're taking a step back and looking at some different alternatives and needing to educate ourselves and people are doing some really incredible things.

We talked briefly, there's ketamine clinics open up. Ayahuasca has been a big buzzword, Gwyneth Paltrow did the goop thing and then we're here talking about psilocybin and I love that you call it plant medicine because it definitely takes the connotation away from it. Because when I think of drugs, I think of street drugs.

That's just where my mind goes. I think of heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, all of those things with Nancy Reagan and the just say no to drugs era. 

[00:07:12] Tracey Tee: Yeah. Your brain is an egg. It's not your ear. Oh gosh. 

[00:07:16] Jessica Gershman: I remember finding, so I'm Lebanese on my father's side and I remember finding out that my grandfather grew and smoked hash in elementary school and I remember crying hysterically be like, He's going to go to jail.

Nancy Reagan says, just say no to drugs. His brain is going to fry. You're not even really getting it, but being seven or eight and being like drugs are bad. 

[00:07:37] Tracey Tee: It was a very effective campaign. 

[00:07:39] Jessica Gershman: Very. It was, everybody remembers the egg frying your brain on drugs, but talk to me about your path into discovering.

Were you an anxious person? Were you on pharmaceuticals? We talked a little bit about a relationship with booze and how that's changed. 

[00:07:52] Tracey Tee: Yeah, and I also want to say too, plant medicine, I refer to it as plant medicine because I use it as plant medicine. There's a plenty of plant medicine modalities that people still utilize in a party setting.

And I've actually become, I never did, like when I was in college, just to backtrack a minute, when I was in college, ecstasy was really big. That's just acid, MDMA, the things that are got the buzzwords now, people have been using in rape and stuff, and people have been doing shrooms socially for years.

In that sense, if you're just using it to get effed up, I would say that's still using it like a drug. One thing I really think is important is to take our mindset away from just getting effed up and actually using them to heal. So just wanted to clarify on that. You can say fuck too if you want.

Oh good. 

[00:08:40] Jessica Gershman: It's definitely one of my favorite eff words of 

[00:08:42] Tracey Tee: all time. I 

[00:08:43] Jessica Gershman: Love it too. 

[00:08:44] Tracey Tee: I started looking into self healing and spirituality in around 2018. I had a company that I co founded with my business partner called Vanna Mothers. We had a nationally touring comedy show called The Pump It Up Show.

And Shay and I traveled all over the country doing this show for moms. And around 2018, after five years of being on the road while raising kids at home, our bodies were broken. We could not do it anymore. And right around that time too, I had turned 40. I was just starting to look at the world and say, there's more out there than what I'm seeing right now.

And so she and I both really started focusing on ourselves. We took Lacey Phillips, great course. To be magnetic course, we did our inner child work, we did shadow work, and I started just growing spiritually. And then in 2020, our business was on this upward trajectory. We had two different casts that were performing our show.

We had a podcast, we had an app, we had all these things, and then we lost everything. We lost our whole business in 2020. And through that process of grieving, it's like losing a child when you lose a business. And so suddenly, and when it wasn't your fault, we really had to go inward. And in June of 2020, just had this sort of out of body, super spiritual experience.

And I wrote in my journal, I was sitting in the living room and my daughter and my husband were in the kitchen. Cooking or something. And I just remember sitting there thinking I'm gonna fly right out of this house. Like I don't know I'm gonna lose my mind I think they're gonna have to check me in and I crawled over to my journal and I wrote I'm either on the verge of a spiritual awakening or I'm losing my mind and I didn't even know what those words meant.

So fast forward a good friend of mine Fortuitously reached out to me the next day after I had this really weird experience and she just happened to be a spiritual coach and she was like, I was just thinking about you. How are you doing? And I told her everything I was thinking and this was right in the heart of lockdown.

And she was like, can you get on zoom right now? And I said, yeah. So I told her everything I was experiencing. She's girl, you're waking up. And I was like, what does that mean? So anyway, we went through a long period of spiritual mentorship and she really helped me unpack. Yeah. What I was going through, who I was becoming, changing my thoughts, releasing old belief systems.

And in that process, plant medicine was just nagging at the back of my head. And so I found a microdosing course online and I was like, I read Michael Pollan's book, how to change your mind. It completely resonated with me. I'd been called to ayahuasca for years. I've still never done it, but it just always made sense to me.

And When I found this course, I signed up and it felt good. Like I was learning about it. It felt structured. It was created by a woman. I felt safe in the container and I started microdosing and I was just one of those people that took the medicine and my life just went and just really supported me through another year and a half of really hard times.

Family was in a terrible car accident. We were hit by a drunk driver in the summer of 2021. My husband walked away from a 14 year career, left a very toxic work environment, ended up starting his own company. Just every life change you can imagine happened was thrown at us. And I was just able to alchemize it all.

And I think it was just the support of the shrooms. So that's been my path. 

[00:12:11] Jessica Gershman: I know. I love that story. And you seem like you experienced all the things at once. So many things at once. 

[00:12:17] Tracey Tee: So many things. And in the moment, it's not to say that there wasn't grief and heartache and hardship and pain and fear and sadness and all that.

It was that when you use plant medicine and you're still working on yourself. I always explain it as. The dark stuff, the shit, it comes right up to your face and it stares you in the face and you stare at it back and then you're able to release it. And instead of the, how we've been conditioned, which is cry, I'm depressed, shove it back down, wait for it for another day to come up and it's this loop.

It just goes away. When I look back, I'm like, gosh, I, I should be a hot mess right now. It's just not. 

[00:12:57] Jessica Gershman: I've always said like with yoga and in my spiritual journey that with awareness comes choice, but that awareness piece is first. And it's hard to gather that awareness with everything that's going on in the busy and the doing and that it really does require stillness and slowing down.

And that is terrifying for a lot of people. And it is terrifying to slow down because when you slow down and you have stillness, that shit comes staring at you in the face. And if you're not prepared to handle it, what do you do with it? Exactly. 

[00:13:27] Tracey Tee: And I feel like I've just completed like another sort of cocoon coming out phase and I'm very much like a learner.

And I think this is why moms on mushrooms really works for me because I can gather information and disseminate information. But when I was healing and I. I always think of the indigo girls song. Like I went to the doctor, I went to the show, I went to all the people and I'm just like, tell me what to do.

And everyone was like, you can't just read your way to enlightenment. You've got to go inward. And I would say, I finally just realized that you have to stop, like you have to trust yourself, but it's so scary. To do that. 

[00:14:02] Jessica Gershman: And it's a constant path and a journey. Like you said, your new cocoon, it's a constant evolution.

And the minute your past slows down, you get hit with some other thing. You're like, okay, and I'm evolving in this way that I didn't know was possible. All right. So we talked a little bit about there's therapeutic dosing or micro dosing mushrooms, and then there's recreational use dosing, which, let's throw that in the party fucked up drug situation.

Okay. That's for a good time, but they're still illegal. Are they not? 

[00:14:28] Tracey Tee: Yes. And most, yeah, in most states, they're legal. Denver, it's decriminalized, which means you can gift, gather and grow it. You can't sell it. And there's a few other cities around the country that are decriminalized. There's a ballot.

Oregon, the state is about to legalize it all around. Hazel park, Michigan just decriminalized it this week. So it's happening. It's coming. 

[00:14:55] Jessica Gershman: Yeah. They're poisonous mushrooms, right? Let's just bring it all the way back ish. Does that. Are they grown on cow dung? That's what I heard when I was growing up.

Tell me what they really are. 

[00:15:04] Tracey Tee: It can be grown on cow dung. Absolutely. You can also, they do taste like shit. I do remember that. They do taste awful that I will not deny. I remember 

[00:15:13] Jessica Gershman: people like putting shrooms on a pizza. Oh, a really bad pizza or in a peanut butter sandwich or something terrible.

[00:15:21] Tracey Tee: Yeah. It's pretty bad. My mentor prefers the real thing, make it in a tea and I, for a larger dose. And I'm always just it's awful. I'll 

[00:15:29] Jessica Gershman: poop tea. I imagine what that is. 

[00:15:31] Tracey Tee: You can get a grow kit and grow mushrooms in your house. There's no dung involved. They're actually really easy to grow.

Yeah. Much easier than like a cannabis. And the beautiful thing about psilocybin mushrooms specifically is that they grow in every corner of the planet everywhere has magic mushrooms. And so I know there's been a lot of talk about cultural appropriation and reciprocity and taking things away from indigenous or original cultures.

And I am a huge supporter of all that, but the shrooms specifically. I think God source, whatever you want to call it, I say, God put those on this planet so that everyone has access to this medicine. Yes. So the stone deep theory is that they were walking, the hunters were walking and they were growing out of elephant dung, but they can grow anywhere.

And they do grow anywhere like in between sidewalk cracks and out of trees and everywhere. Do 

[00:16:25] Jessica Gershman: you grow your own 

[00:16:26] Tracey Tee: Tracey? I don't yet. And I'm not really sure why. I think I've just been so busy. I'm such a fan of the mushrooms that I feel like if I start growing, that's a whole nother industry that I'm going to get into.

So I haven't yet, but I know a lot of people do. 

[00:16:42] Jessica Gershman: All right, so let's talk about the micro dosing course. And what do you want to teach other moms about this? And what is it done for you? What is a micro dose versus a recreational dose? Let's get into all of those. Yeah, so 

[00:16:53] Tracey Tee: a micro dose is a sub perceptual dosage of psilocybin.

Which means it's a such a small dose that you have none of the psychotropic effects so you know hallucinogens are not high and that is hands down the number one question certainly was my concern, which is I'm a mom like I can't be high like I gotta drive my kids to school like can't happen in it doesn't.

It works sub perceptually and over time, studies have shown that small amounts of plant medicine and again, we'll stick with psilocybin, create the same effects as what is called like a hero's dose or a journey dose, which is when you take a larger amount, like two to seven grams of mushrooms, you'd go and talk to God.

Your life has changed forever. It's also amazing, but that's like a seven hour day. And over time, when you're working with the plant medicine, they start to rewire the neurons in your brain. So if you imagine your neurons, and especially like a mom's neurons, is everything was just a little bit of a frayed, like a split end.

They split. 

[00:18:00] Jessica Gershman: Like a really bad hair when you bleached it once. 

[00:18:04] Tracey Tee: Or just haven't, or like you've just worn it in a bun for eight days and you're like, oh, it's wiring out. So it just smooths all those out and then it starts to re pattern your brain and the way you live in the world. Those patterns start to get reworked.

And so when you would normally get really reactive, if your kid dropped a Bottle on the floor. Yeah. 

[00:18:25] Jessica Gershman: Strict milk all over from the open container of milk when you're like trying to rush out the door. 

[00:18:30] Tracey Tee: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So instead if that's something that's like really triggering for you or even take a bigger like a family gathering and you just can't deal with your mother in law.

The plant medicine can help those triggering aspects of your personality repattern your brain so that you actually start to just act differently in the best way. And if you compare that to an SSRI, which is an antidepressant, which is also very amazing and really good medicine for a lot of people.

However, the difference is an SSRI typically numbs what's happening now in situations in terms of severe depression, severe anxiety, you need to come down. Like you need that break from that really intense state. So that's why it's such a gift, but there's no repatterning that's happening. So it's not a sustainable option.

It's not a sustainable healing modality, but psilocybin really is. That's why I was like poisonous. It's there's no side effects. It's not addictive. And of course, because it's been illegal and the government shut it down in the 60s, there's been no true longitudinal studies of how long you can take it.

But anecdotally. from lots of people, including doctors. You can certainly microdose psilocybin for years longer than you could take an SSRI. 

[00:19:49] Jessica Gershman: Okay, so we talked a little bit about health effects. Are there negative health effects that you know of that they've been studied since it's not really been studied because it was illegal and people aren't doing that?

[00:19:59] Tracey Tee: In microdosing, I suppose there's some initial negative effects like it can make you tired when you start to microdose. It can give you headaches. Some people get stomach aches. All of those are temporary, typically, and usually it's Because your body is actually coming online. And I think going back to our cultural conditioning, we're so used to drugs and we're so used to having a problem and wanting it fixed in 72 hours that we're not used to a ramping up of something working with our body instead of shutting it down or numbing it.

So a lot of people are like it just made me sleepy. So I quit where if you just work through it, it's actually, Your brain recognizing what your body's probably been telling you for years, which is you're just fucking tired. You just need to lay down more. You need to take a nap. And you haven't been doing it, but it just makes you hyper aware of all those things, which is again, like why people tend to stop drinking or.

Don't eat as much sugar or feel like coffee because you're so hyper aware of how your body feels. It like recalibrates you. 

[00:21:06] Jessica Gershman: And what I hear with some of these alternative medicine theories and my personal journey, I've spent 13 years on the yogic path. I've done years of trauma work, healing my own personal trauma.

And I'm talking years, Tracey, I've been doing this for 13 years. And I felt extremely grateful when I got into my EMDR work to heal some of my past trauma. That I was even in a psychological place that was stable enough to want to go down that path, but it was also years of going into weekly therapy.

And so what I hear with some of these alternative therapies is where I felt my neurons changing. I felt my brain releasing energy, but it is a very slow burn. It is a slow process, but that with some of these alternative therapies, we can fast track that brain healing that we need. Yoga reworks the brain, creates new firing patterns.

Over so many years, you could do yoga. It's years before someone's Hey, Jess is a nice person. She's not such a bitch anymore. It wasn't like one yoga class and everyone's Whoa, you're amazing. So I hear that it's this fast track. And what I also hear you saying is that it increases the mind body connection.

And brings that to the forefront. And when we talk about just mindfulness and I do on this podcast, being in the present moment and how difficult it is for people to even understand how to access the present moment, to really even get in their body and feel it. We have voted off as women, our body islands a long time ago.

[00:22:31] Tracey Tee: Yeah, 

[00:22:32] Jessica Gershman: We're living from our, our emotional island our verbal island, our intellectual island, our body island. Yeah, we just want to think it through all the time, but we don't want to really connect, which is really the tool that we have to be in the present moment. So when you go through this kind of microdosing, is it a daily thing?

Is it like, Oh, I'm going to be a little stressed today. So I'm going to microdose. What does that look like? I 

[00:22:55] Tracey Tee: would say microdosing is a slow burn too. I think one thing that a lot of people in this space are concerned about is this sort of magic bullet fantasy. And it's not to say that microdosing didn't change my life because it 100 percent did.

But there's a couple of things that I think attributed to that. A, I was already doing the work. B, I was ready for change. I was open to the emotional highs and lows. I was open to facing my demons. And so when you microdose. It is typically five days on, two days off or four days on, three days off. There's kind of two different things.

And again, no law, massive longitudinal studies, but people can do it gears really if you want. I was hardcore five days on two days off for about nine months. And then again, because you come online, because that mind body connection happens, you really start to intuitively feel. If and when you need the medicine.

So now I would say I maybe take it two or three days a week, just depending. And it's not necessarily Oh, I'm having a crap day. I'm going to take the medicine. Although that may help. However, I would say, Oh, I'm going to a family reunion. I'm going to definitely make sure I have the medicine with me as a supportive tool.

But again, only if you're really willing to live in that container of the work. So one thing that I feel really strongly about. In terms of micro dosing. And again, why I started moms on mushrooms is we can no longer heal in a vacuum. We are so starved for community. It's been stripped from us for two years.

And honestly, it was going away before that. Everything was digitized. We're getting so scared of each other. People aren't really talking. Everyone's triggered by everyone else's posts and there's no conversation happening. The diversification of ideas is just being homogenized and the tolerance has gone way down for people's opinions, and I think we really need to bring that back and we need to heal together and start talking to each other.

And so if you combine community with doing your inner work. Plant medicine and you are willing to open your heart and have honest, open, vulnerable conversations with people. And I think in the space, in the container for moms doing it with other moms who have the same shared experience, that's where the magic happens.

[00:25:17] Jessica Gershman: I love it. There's a quote that was on your website. It says, A circle of women can provide a container for emergence in a way that a woman alone or even a one-to-one relationship cannot. 

[00:25:26] Tracey Tee: That's from the feminine face of God, which is this book is blowing my mind. It's such a beautiful book, but it's so true.

And to that point, that book is about these two authors interviewed 200 women about how they came to their spirituality on their own outside of the patriarchal confines that tell us that we're spiritual or tell us that we're religious. Like how did you come to your own truth? And I think you have to do it in a circle.

[00:25:51] Jessica Gershman: We came from tribes. We were villages, right? That's how we came to this earth. We raised children together. We worked together. We communicated together. We helped one another out. There is this deep need for going back to some of that. The isolation and how The pandemic was one thing, but we were, like you said, we weren't in a great place going into it.

It 

[00:26:11] Tracey Tee: wasn't great before. I know we all talk about the olden times. It wasn't so good. We were really heading for an iceberg big time and it came, it showed up. 

[00:26:21] Jessica Gershman: Absolutely. Ye ask and ye shall receive. We were asking for it in a way, but it definitely splintered an already fragile community of women.

So this course that you created, talk me through it. I'm signing up. What does that look like? 

[00:26:34] Tracey Tee: So you sign up and it's a digital online educational course. that allows you to learn about the benefits of plant medicine while you explore aspects of yourself that will probably be changing when you're on the plant medicine.

And the funny thing is there's six lessons. So it's a three month course and there's six bi weekly lessons and there's six bi weekly zoom calls. And the zoom calls are absolutely the most sort of sacred part because that's when we come together and we talk. And I've gone back and forth. I'll probably do in person ones here in Colorado because I can, but then it's if you want to join zoom is really beautiful in that way.

And so let's use this modern technology for good. But the lessons actually follow the chakras and I really fought it. It came to me in meditation and I didn't want to go. So woo, but occurred to me is that for people who know what the chakras are, you start at the root and then you end at the crown. And that's how the medicine works through your body.

Like you started the root chakra, you're coming to the medicine because you're either depressed, you have anxiety, you want to heal, something's wrong. You probably also have concerns about taking plant medicine. And so your roots just off. And once you get that established, you go up through the chakras.

And it's really good for moms to just focus on one aspect of their spiritual, emotional, and mental aspects, and look at that for a couple of weeks and then move on to a different one. And so that's really what the course is. And there's journal prompts, there's activation exercises, and that's the lessons.

There's videos to watch, to learn, and think about how to integrate the medicine. And then the second half of the course is what I call Goop on shrooms. It's just support tools. So what is plant medicine? What other plant medicines are out there? What are herbs? What herbs should I look at? And what's a nootropic?

What's an adaptogen? And then if you want to go deeper, here's some books to read. Here's some podcasts to listen to. Here's some YouTube videos to watch. Here's some playlists to listen to when your brain just wants something different than Taylor Swift, who I love, but like maybe you want to move your body in a different way.

And what kind of music can I listen to? So It's really like a holistic approach. There's a lot of talk about booze, because again, one of the big things that most people notice is that you lay off the booze. You just don't want it anymore, but what happens when that leaves your life and what can you do to replace it?

So it's, half lessons, half support. 

[00:29:01] Jessica Gershman: What's interesting, I love that you chose the chakras because you start with even at the root, like our inherited trauma, our family trauma, the stuff that happened to us when we were little, like you have to deal with that shit before you can get to our power struggle and our sex centers and how we feel about that.

And before we can even get to start to open up our heart and find our voice and then, be enlightened. So there is a natural path. That's why it's been around for thousands and thousands of years. It is a natural path up to awakening. Yeah. So two questions. One, when you first were on your microdosing course, did you have a therapist?

Who did you connect with? Were you in a course? What was your community? 

[00:29:35] Tracey Tee: I did it. That course became my community. And then the woman who started that course really became a mentor. And that's when I learned that community was super important. I did not have a therapist. I had been doing my own healing work.

Thankfully, again, my best friend, business partner, we were doing it together. I was seeing a bunch of healers, but nothing consistently. Then I did have to get a therapist after our family got hit by a drunk driver. We all got a therapist and then she's really helped and she's a shaman as well. So she's really helped me tap deeper into that spiritual aspect and keep me balanced.

So my community, I was a lone wolf. Nobody knew I was really doing it except some close friends and family, because there's a lot of stigma about it. And when something's so good and so holy and so pure and Nancy Reagan ruined it all, I just thought one day I got to start talking about it.

And if they throw me in jail, they throw me in jail, but I very brave 

[00:30:35] Jessica Gershman: of you. It really is. I 

[00:30:37] Tracey Tee: say that until I'm in jail. 

[00:30:39] Jessica Gershman: Nobody really wants to be in jail because that's my second question. So my question is for the people that are the naysayers and saying, Tracey, this is a drug.

This is illegal. All of those things. What do you tell them? 

[00:30:49] Tracey Tee: I was just at a psychedelic conference in Salt Lake City, which apparently this is who I am now. But one of the panelists said everything is drugs. Everything is drugs. Sugar is a drug. Coffee is a drug. Alcohol is a drug. Salt, sodium can be a drug.

Porn is a drug. We are a very infused, drug induced society. We've just decided to be selective of what we think is okay and what isn't, based on what the government tells us is okay and what isn't. And the government gets it wrong a lot. We have a massive opioid Issue. As we all know, we have a massive alcohol issue.

As we all know, we have a massive sugar caffeine and we glorify it because we want everyone to be doing what we're doing. So I have to try to explain that the stigma that you've been programmed to believe is simply untrue. And I do think that's where if we can open our minds with a reverence to original cultures.

If you explain that other cultures have been utilizing this since time started and that it's a sacred and holy thing, why is that okay for them, but not for us? And I think that's another reason why I really believe in microdosing because I actually don't think as a culture, we're ready to just take hero doses of psilocybin.

It's a lot for your brain and there are concerns. If you have schizophrenia, massive bipolar disorder. Any number of severe mental health issues. It might not be the best for you or it definitely needs to be taken under the monitor of your therapist, but for the normal person who just suffers from day to day anxiety, stress, overwhelm, exhaustion, even still eating three grams of mushrooms without being prepared for a what that does to your body, what it shows you.

You're not going to like it. You're not going to like what and you're not going to be able to integrate it. And so I really think micro dosing, especially for Americans is super important because it allows us to get to know the plant medicine, to understand how it works in our body. And they really do work with you.

A lot of original cultures call it the plant people. They call them the little angels of light. And when you realize that there's a co communication and a co creation that's happening, then you can start to respect it and build on it and let them heal you as you heal yourself. And I just think you need to lay that groundwork before you just go off and do a really big journey, because I just don't think we're ready.

[00:33:20] Jessica Gershman: That makes a lot of sense and it comes back to intentionality. If your intention is to go have a good time or do whatever versus I'm coming in to heal, it's how you are approaching something. And like anything, you don't want to go out and never run a mile in your life and, sign up for the Boston Marathon.

[00:33:34] Tracey Tee: Exactly. Exactly. And that's the same with anything. You can have massively amazing, obviously, Euphoric experiences in yoga, but you're not going to just go jump into a yoga retreat or a silent retreat without some preparation. So again, back to the stigma, I think it's, we start to realize that when you're taking psilocybin, you're not just walking around, tripping, looking at rainbows and unicorns floating in the sky and letting your life fly you by, that it's actually integrating with you and making you a better person.

That it is sacred and holy. I think the more people that realize that, and you're allowed to destigmatize it, especially for mothers. And we start to actually have honest conversations, which is why are you having a bottle of Chardonnay every night? And why is this mushroom bad? Let's talk about the difference here and the why are we doing it?

You're taking the bottle of Chardonnay to escape. You're eating the mushroom to face your fears and move forward. Love it. What advice do you have for women that really want to slow down? Take it slow. Take the slowing down slow. Take just one little thing at a time. I think again, culturally we are conditioned to be all or nothing.

So you're like, I'm going to be healthy. I'm going to be healthy now. So I'm just going to drink green juice. And sit in the sauna for 45 minutes and kill myself in Bikram yoga and you burn out. And I think the better approach is, I love Brene Brown, be vulnerable, learn how to be vulnerable first, learn how to admit that you're not a superwoman, learn how to reject being a superwoman and then say, okay, what can I take off my plate?

And that comes to boundaries that goes to. Learning to say no and listening to what your heart wants rather than what your head is telling you or what society is telling you and little by little you start to recraft your life in a way that feels supportive rather than you waking up every day and thinking, I'm not going to make it till 5 p.

m. Let alone 10 p. m. Just those little changes. And then over time you start to listen to your body. You start to listen to your heart and You're actually, and it's such a buzzy word, but then you actually start to co create your life. But it's not an easy process, especially for American moms. We're just too fricking busy.

[00:35:53] Jessica Gershman: And it's the art of the reframe, right? I think about that a lot, that we start to reframe who told us something was good or bad, right? If we start to take these very constrictive labels off of things. Really look at where they came from. Look, we talked about chardonnay is good. Mushrooms are bad. Someone said that a long time ago.

It's stuck. That's what society said. And, that's how the ego is created to keep us in line when we're kids were curious and childlike and open and vulnerable and excited. You look at your child when they're little and everything is new and everything is exciting and we lose that.

And you look at an adult and they're dull and they're withered and they're overworked and they're overwhelmed. And then you start to play in the reframe or play in the gray and say, okay. What are these hard lines that I have? Did I create those? Is it something that I truly believe in? Do I truly believe that fat is bad and skinny is good?

Do I truly believe Chardonnay is good and mushrooms are bad or other plant medicines are bad? It really starts to address where we got some of these beliefs in our belief system, unpack that a little bit and then reframe it. And it's that whole idea of Reframing what a good mom looks like. It's not the superwoman.

[00:37:07] Tracey Tee: It's not the superwoman. And I think two things that I think are super pervasive in our culture that really hurt us are resistance to change. We do it this way. I have 2. 5 kids. I have the white picket fence. We have the nice car. They go to the good school. Blah, blah, blah. My house looks like your house, which looks like her house, which look like his house.

I wear the good yoga pants, all that bullshit. But in resistance to change in terms of. Making your life look like how you think you want, like you were saying. And then the second is just skepticism. Skepticism that there's something better. Skepticism that maybe someone has a different idea than you.

That someone has a different perspective than you and it's okay. Skepticism of your ability to change. And skepticism of Healing modalities that aren't the standard issue, get it from Walmart or Target and your doctor in a white lab coat and being open to the beauty and the bounty of this world. And we've forgotten, like you said, when you're young, everything is magical.

And as adults, we just get skeptical. We've even just told ourselves that dirt is bad. Like we don't even like our kids to get dirty anymore. We're scared of plants. We're scared of bugs. When did that happen? And so again, like you said, reframing that to say, look at this miracle that I live in every day.

What does it have to offer me? These shrooms look great. Then I think it just, it changes everything, but it's going to take some time. 

[00:38:35] Jessica Gershman: I love it. Every journey starts with a single step. Yeah, every day. It starts with awareness and then choice. So tell all the listeners where they can find information on your course.

And I think you have a little freebie for the listeners that you want to offer. 

[00:38:47] Tracey Tee: Yeah. So moms on mushrooms dot com and on instagram. I'm at moms on mushrooms official and there's course offerings all the time. But for the listeners here, you guys can get 50 off the course. If you sign up mhm. I do a one on one call with everyone who applies to make sure that this is like a perfect fit for you.

And so all you have to do is hit the apply button on the website. I will reach out to you. We'll have a chat. And if you decide to sign up, you can get 50 off. 

[00:39:15] Jessica Gershman: Love it. I love it. And I'll put all the links in the show notes for all the listeners. Tracey T, thank you so much for sharing your story and sharing your beliefs.

I love it. Pleasure. 

[00:39:23] Tracey Tee: Thanks for having me.