In this episode of AyahuascaPodcast.com host Sam Believ has a conversation with Tracey Tee founder of mother’s on mushrooms.
We touch upon subjects of microdosing for mother’s, postpartum depression, quitting antidepressants using microdosing and more.
Find more about Tracey and her project at http://www.momsonmushrooms.com
Or at the Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/momsonmushroomsofficial
Transcript
Sam Believ (00:01.424)
Hi guys and welcome to ayahuascapodcast .com. As always with you the host, Sam Belyev. Today we’re gonna have a guest, Tracy T. Tracy is from Cheese of Honor of Mums and Mushrooms, where she talks about everything regarding microdosing for moms and so much more. I’m very excited for this episode. Tracy, welcome.
Tracey Tee (00:24.9)
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Sam Believ (00:27.988)
Tracy, tell us a little bit about yourself and what made you work with microdosing with mushrooms and specifically with mums.
Tracey Tee (00:38.076)
Thank you. Yeah. Well, I am a mom. I have a 13 year old daughter. I live in Denver, Colorado. I’ve been married for almost 22 years. And I am a late in life psychonaut. I came to Mushrooms in my mid 40s after losing a business that actually was also working with moms actually had a live comedy show that
was a comedy show for mothers about laughing about all the things we have in common as moms. So I’ve been in the mom world ever since I’ve been a mom, actually, professionally. And when I started working with this medicine to not only heal some grief, but continue my own spiritual journey, what became abundantly clear was that I believe this medicine has presented itself on the planet in this time in history. Not.
not specifically for moms, but for moms for sure, because it’s such a gentle heart opening reconnector. And I believe that the mental health of mothers, especially modern Western mothers is in a place where it’s not sustainable. We are in a critical period and moms are deeply unhappy, deeply over -medicated, deeply depressed.
and we’re raising children and we are at a critical point of how we take care of the generations that we’re raising. And I think this medicine is here to help. So for me, microdosing felt like the perfect step to bring moms back together and to reinstall that sense of community that I think our modern Western culture is really missing. Mushrooms require that of the people.
It is a web. It wants to be taken and worked with in community. And I also believe that microdosing specifically for moms, especially in the West, in the US where I’m living, we don’t have a culture that has any sense of appreciation for ceremony or sacredness.
Tracey Tee (02:52.22)
and any kind of connection, continuous connection to nature that’s not like a novel, oh, look at me, I’m gonna take a picture of myself out in the forest type thing, but a true connection to ceremony and what it means to actually, sacredly heal. So I believe that microdosing first allows a mother to understand what entheogenic medicine feels like in her body and create a relationship for it because what my concern is,
is as this psychedelic renaissance continues to grow, the enthusiasm makes people go out and seek out the largest, biggest, strongest, most expansive journey they can find, and that can actually be incredibly destabilizing. So this is a way to gently introduce the medicine to mothers so that you can go and pursue a large dose journey and feel safe and empowered and actually have a relationship with the medicine. And that’s what Moms on Mushrooms is about.
Sam Believ (03:51.184)
It’s beautiful. I’m really identifying with many things you say, you know, the fact that you work with mothers and humor. I think we’re too serious these days and the healing will come from playfulness. And you probably know mushrooms, mushrooms do that a lot. And, you know, serving moms as well, it’s a very sort of unserved population. And I love you being on that quest about spreading information because, yeah, the world deserves to know that.
It’s a medicine and that psychedelics can be extremely helpful. I want to tell you about my personal story and why I was so compelled to interview. So I have a wife, we started Lawyra together, which is an ayahuasca retreat. And of course, when you… We have two kids and she’s pregnant again now with the third one. So I completely agree with your task. And when, after our second son was born…
She was acting very strange. She was being negative about lots of things. And I asked myself, you know, everything she talks about, it’s actually pretty good. The situation was pretty good. So I didn’t understand why she was negative. So of course, because I already worked in this field a little bit, I thought, okay, maybe she’s depressed. And then I remembered about listening to podcasts, I believe as well, something about postpartum depression.
Tracey Tee (05:00.036)
Hmm.
Sam Believ (05:15.216)
And it all came together. So I went to the freezer where I had some mushrooms. I took a microdose and I gave it to her and she accepted it obviously because we work in this field. And about a few weeks later, she started to feel better and it was pretty clear. Of course, as you say in your content, post -depression doesn’t just go away immediately, but it really eased her pain and it got much better. So, you know,
Talk to us a little bit about why microdosing is so perfect for moms specifically and maybe if you know tell us a little bit about postpartum depression.
Tracey Tee (05:53.628)
Sure, you know, microdosing, well, first of all, okay, if we reframe, all right, how do we start with this? If we look at a mother in distress or a mother who is depressed or a mother who is in need of help, okay, mental health help, however that looks, our traditional models are, you know, traditional psychology, which is go into an office, sit down, talk about the thing,
maybe talk about it some more. And then eventually, truly, the common thing is, well, you’re unhappy or you’re sad. So we’re going to make you unsad or less sad with this pill. And what happens is that nothing is actually healed. Nothing is cleared out from the body or from the heart. And the mom is put inside a loop where she is in both ways. If she’s going to therapy, oftentimes,
re -traumatizing herself by talking over and over about the thing that’s bothering her with no resolve. And then at the same time is having a numbed out experience where she’s not actually connected to her deep emotions and isn’t, her body isn’t chemically allowing her emotions to come to the surface to release the trauma of which she speaks. So that is a very, very generalization of like the mental health of mothers and how
moms traditionally go in and seek out mental health help. Microdosing is the exact opposite. Microdosing is a real like punch in the throat frankly of medicine that comes, that brings all of your feelings up to the surface. And I believe it connects your heart and your mind and your body so that all three things are speaking to each other and hearing each other, which means when you’re…
which I believe that microdosing, it helps you feel and become more embodied. So you’re feeling aches and pains and fatigue and overwhelm in your body more acutely. And your brain is finally hearing your body tell your brain, you need to slow down, you’re not okay. This is something that needs to be addressed. And at the same time, microdosing allows those feelings to come up or those problems. And you stared at it, it stares at you.
Tracey Tee (08:19.932)
and you recognize it and you acknowledge it for what it is. And then I believe that the medicine can just sort of like, from that acknowledgement point, sort of like turns into butterflies and flies away and it doesn’t go back down inside you. And so it’s a very gentle way to actually fully, holistically heal something that is bothering a mother. On top of that,
Large dose journeys are amazing, as you well know, and ayahuasca is amazing, but moms don’t necessarily have the time it takes to devote to a truly integrated, purposeful preparation period and then going into doing a large dose journey. And then a lot of times moms don’t have the time to integrate afterwards. Our healing is done in between school and making snacks and wiping butts.
and giving baths and driving to doctor’s appointments, we don’t have long spans of hours in a day or over a weekend to devote to ourselves. And I’m not saying that sarcastically, I wish we did. But when you take on the role of a parent, that is your number one priority is raising tiny humans. So weaving in psychedelic medicine is absolutely possible, but it just takes a different approach than what is traditionally presented out in the psychedelic space.
And microdosing is just a gentler, slower, smaller way to heal incrementally in a timeframe that actually works for a mother because you’re not high. And you can do those things. You can heal on the car ride back from school. You have some space there and the medicine is working with you. So that’s really why I think this is so important and potent for mothers. In terms of postpartum, there’s actually…
so little research, actual research done about postpartum depression, what is triggering it and what actually will help it. What we’ve done is we’ve just taken a medication model, which is she looks like she’s in happier and distress. So we’re just going to give her an antidepressant and there’s no exit strategy and there’s no actual support that comes in and holds the mother where she’s at. I mean, your story about seeing your wife feeling concerned.
Tracey Tee (10:38.272)
offering some medicine and saying like, I know that something’s wrong and as you know, holding her to help is the right way. And sometimes we just need that community to come around a mom who whose body and hormones are in massively rewiring, you know, patterns and hold space for her, nourish her, give her food, give her rest, give her the help she needs. And then let’s take a look at like her hormones.
and her deeper mental health. And I think that microdosing can really help support that because it’s not going to interfere with anything else. And it’s going to allow her to feel her grief and her pain if she’s experiencing that postpartum while releasing it so that it doesn’t stick with her for years to come.
Sam Believ (11:27.024)
That’s a great explanation. I think you spoke about it on the other interview you did, but can you tell us about why moms, especially soon after birth, why is it such a priority for them to feel good?
Tracey Tee (11:45.788)
I just think that that is programming that we’ve accepted over many generations. I think culturally, there is little tolerance for a woman who is hysterical, right? Hysteria, we used to, that’s what, you know, menses used to be called, you know, your hysterical period. And traditionally in a patriarchal society, we don’t like women who are sad.
We don’t like women who are angry. We don’t like women who are depressed, who are grieving. And there has been this just expectation of when a woman has a baby that she has about six weeks to bounce back and fix everything. And that’s like your grace period. But even then, you know, a lot of women go back to work even before that time, or you’ve got other kids at home that you’re raising.
And you’re just expected to get over this monumental thing that you just went through and carry on as if nothing happened. And the truth is, again, going back to just research and understanding female physiology, we don’t really even address the massive physical changes that happen to a woman when she gives birth. And we definitely don’t, from an allopathic way, say, okay, here’s your course back to care after you had a baby.
We’re gonna monitor your hormones. We’re gonna monitor your blood sugar levels. We’re gonna monitor your adrenals and we’re gonna give you supplements and we’re gonna give you the support and nutritional aspect you need so that you’re rebalanced. None of that happens and it just leads to hysterical women. And we just don’t have a society right now that concerns itself over an unhappy mother.
Sam Believ (13:38.896)
Yeah, hopefully that improves. And especially when the baby is just born, if a mother is depressed, then the baby will have attachment issues. And then it keeps going, let’s say, if a baby is a girl, then it keeps going for a generation. It just keeps accumulating. And we need something to sort of break that pattern. Tracy, why did you choose mushrooms specifically for helping mothers?
Tracey Tee (14:05.532)
Well, I would just say mushrooms chose me. I didn’t really have much say in the matter, honestly, as I look back on the path of my life. Mushrooms just came into play. It’s something I’ve always loved. I’ve always loved plants and have studied herbology and herbal medicine for years, decades. And mushrooms would always come up and I’ve always been fascinated by the healing, like.
powers of magic mushrooms. But again, as a mom, I just was like, well, none of that is for me. And actually, to be perfectly honest, I was mostly interested in ayahuasca when I started to research psychedelic medicine. And then for some reason, the mushrooms just came in hot and just sort of showed up in my front door one day. And the minute I worked with mushrooms for the first time, it’s like a grand knowing, just a light
bulb went on inside my soul and I just knew, I just knew that they were my master teacher. I always joke, it was one journey kind of early on, I was with my mentor and I was on the floor of course, like weeping and I looked up at her and I said, I think I’m just put on this earth to eat mushrooms. And that’s just kind of how I feel. I just think they’re just, they were just presented as my master plan teacher.
Sam Believ (15:26.96)
Yeah, I really identify with that because people ask me like, how did you end up doing this? And I was like, well, all I did was the work direction was set by something else. And just as, as in your journey, just synchronicities happen and you get guided. So I think I do believe that certain people have are put on this path because the world kind of needs it. And so, so you mentioned that you were, I mean, I’m a
I’m a big fan of mushrooms in ayahuasca as well. But obviously we ended up working with ayahuasca also for legal reasons because in Colombia ayahuasca is legal and mushrooms are sort of in a gray zone. But both medicines are very beautiful. And I believe that combining two, not together in the same ceremony, but let’s say in between your ayahuasca retreats, because it’s hard to go and do that, mushrooms can reconnect you to that state. And it’s a beautiful combination. You know, it’s like a…
Ayahuasca is a grandmother, mushrooms are grandchildren, and it’s a family in the end of the day. So you said you felt calling for ayahuasca first, and then obviously it’s difficult for a mother to get out of life and dedicate long time for ayahuasca. So did you end up doing ayahuasca in the future or not?
Tracey Tee (16:48.412)
No, I haven’t done it yet. I think one thing that I’ve learned is I, and I always say that I’m raised by medicine women and this path. My path is very much the slow medicine woman way. So those are my mentors. And even though I’m a type A triple Aries manifesting generator who likes to get stuff done really fast, I know that my teacher for ayahuasca will present.
itself themselves when it in the time will open itself up. And I wanted to speak to that, especially for ayahuasca, because I, you know, I’ve obviously have hundreds of conversations with women who have done it who want to do it. But I also and it is a little bit more of a time constraint for for people and for mothers. But I think as this as this space grows, and as we raise awareness around
using entheogenic medicines for healing, my prayer is that as a culture, we start to make room for each other to go and do these things without judgment and with support. So that when a girlfriend says or a wife says to her husband, I’m feeling called to do ayahuasca, the husband knows because this is the shift in our culture.
Yes. All right. Let’s make this happen for you and not, oh my God, you know, and it’s so much money and it’s this and it’s that, but like, you feel it. This is important to you. It’s important for me. Let’s do it. And I really hope that that changes over time. But yeah, as far as the relationship between mushrooms and ayahuasca, you’re right. And also, I don’t think we talk a lot about in the space that I really believe that microdosing is such a beautiful way to integrate after a large dose journey.
So you have that ayahuasca experience and then you can come home and you can microdose with the mushrooms and stay with the grandmother and really learn and integrate those lessons, I think a lot easier and more gently with the help of a low dose of another medicine.
Sam Believ (18:49.744)
Definitely. Ayahuasca and mushrooms is a match made in heaven. Yeah. And I love what you say about the cultural shift because my personal dream is and partially why I’m doing this podcast right now is to go from a point of what is Ayahuasca to the point of to the conversation starter where when’s the last time you did Ayahuasca and hopefully, hopefully we get there. And what you talk about stigma is definitely true. You know, when you, if people think that
Tracey Tee (19:10.18)
Yeah.
Sam Believ (19:19.224)
ayahuasca or mushrooms is a schedule one drug and then obviously a mother doing ayahuasca or mushrooms is very stigmatized. We definitely need to change that. You know what Tracy, you know how synchronicities happen and you get calling for ayahuasca. I consider sometimes myself to be the messenger for that call so I would like to use that.
chance to extend an invitation for you to come to the retreat, totally free of charge. So when you’re ready, and maybe we’ll do next episode in person and after you finally do your ayahuasca experience. So, and I definitely, because I am a father myself and my, my, my, my wife, she, she works with ayahuasca. Obviously there are certain.
Tracey Tee (19:57.956)
Mmm.
Sam Believ (20:07.216)
traditional ceremony rules and how and when and which month and stuff like that. But I do, we do welcome mothers when they want to come with children. Obviously the problem is who’s going to take care of the child. So in that case, what we normally do, we ask a couple to come together and bring a kid with them. Then they, they have a private accommodation and what they do is one day the husband drinks, another day the wife drinks and in between they take care of the child together. This
This seems to be working. I think it’s a good solution for those who do want to try ayahuasca. So Tracy, I know for example in a tradition here in Colombia with ayahuasca, women are allowed to drink on certain months of pregnancy. It also comes with postpartum. What about mushrooms? When is it safe to take mushrooms in the microdose form? Can…
Tracey Tee (20:43.066)
Hmm.
Sam Believ (21:04.206)
Pregnant women take mushrooms, can women that are breastfeeding take mushrooms? What is your take on that?
Tracey Tee (21:12.188)
Well, obviously the jury is out from a scientific standpoint. There is not enough research. I don’t have a take because I’m not a doctor, but I will say that in terms of toxicity, and this is what I’ve spoken to with scientists, is if you are taking an SSRI while you’re pregnant and they’re not concerned about it crossing the blood -brain barrier, you can assume that psilocybin,
will act in a similar manner. And so that is a really very basic but simple analogy that makes sense to me. I also believe that if you are in distress and you are having a hard time with your pregnancy and it is actually compromising how you are growing that baby and showing up as a mother with the baby in your belly, then, and if mushrooms feel like the answer, I think that…
a woman, a mother’s intuition, if you’re actually listening to it, may not be wrong. And then I look back at traditional cultures, like you’re saying. I look back at what the original peoples have done for centuries around pregnancy and especially postpartum and breastfeeding. And I look at the stories of the medicine women who have done it and how their children and even grandchildren have turned out.
and how wonderful and almost magical they are. So I kind of just take an agnostic view and I don’t take an agnostic view. I take a intuition view. I think that answer is between you and God. And I think that if it feels like the right thing, I think you probably are called to do it.
Sam Believ (22:58.382)
Mm -hmm. Tracy, I can imagine you work with hundreds if not thousands of mothers. For the mothers that might be listening to this episode, what kind of results can they expect to get? What are success stories you maybe want to share?
Tracey Tee (23:17.07)
Yeah, thank you. And I also just want to say to that point, a friend of mine, Michaela De La Maico, has almost dedicated her life to this discussion of mushrooms and motherhood in utero and in breastfeeding. And she’s a great resource. She’s working on a project called Mothers of the Mushroom, and she’s written papers about it and has a beautiful community. And I encourage anyone listening to this to look up. I think her handle is Mama De La Maico.
on Instagram and she’s a great resource. So I always also defer to her. But for me, the women who come to us and we really kind of specialize in women postpartum and we’ve had women go through our courses as early as four weeks postpartum and breastfeeding. So it’s very common in our community. I think the number one thing that women come to Moms on Mushrooms for is to get off one if not several medications.
They feel like they’re on a treadmill of antidepressants, ADHD medication, sleep medications, and they don’t know how to get off that treadmill. And so their soul is seeking a simpler, gentler way. The second thing that women usually come to us is just simple presence. They have a desire to be present with their children. I think collectively we’re feeling the overwhelm of this technological culture.
of being connected to our phones, our computers, and the distractions that are happening. Our attention spans are shortening, which makes it actually physically and mentally more difficult to hang out with a two -year -old because we’re so used to being distracted and moving on to the next thing. Kids actually move quite slow. When they get into something, they want to stay there for quite a long time. That’s not where we’re at.
Women really find that microdosing helps them drop in. It helps soften the go, go, go and those charged edges and really just find joy in the simple presence of just hanging out with your kid. And then the third thing is reactivity, which kind of goes with it. Just, you know, very, I don’t think any mom likes yelling at her kids, right? We know we have abusive parents in the world and that’s its own thing. But generally speaking, most mothers really just want to be the best moms they can.
Tracey Tee (25:39.034)
and the shame that’s associated when you don’t show up is the best, can put you into a spiral. And women really just wanna be gentler with their children. They don’t wanna be as triggered by their kids. They don’t wanna yell at their kids. They wanna find a language of commonality. And the ones who work and really work to create an intentional microdosing practice through our program or someone else’s, find that the medicine is really supportive and just making you the mother that you want to be. And so it really, at the end, has nothing to do.
with you and everything to do with you, but so much to do. It’s really a lot of women in Moms on Mushrooms just are doing it for their kids.
Sam Believ (26:18.576)
I just had a question and it’s a little selfish. What about the fathers? Should they take more food?
Tracey Tee (26:25.956)
Okay, well first of all, Dads on Mushrooms is coming, so that is definitely on our list. I think if I say over and over that mothers are in distress and the mental health of mothers is concerning, I think we have the same issue with fathers. And I think the men who are wanting to step up in this day and age and really show up for their families and for their partners have very little support. I think there’s actually much more support.
female to female right now than there is man to man and certainly father to father. We’re seeing a rise of younger generations of men who are young and maybe considering starting a family and single who are working with this medicine and finding great healing. But just good old fashioned dads who just want to do right by their family, there’s not a lot. So we’re hoping to come and fill that gap. But I think the family that microdoses together probably stays together.
because you are gonna be connected on a deeper heart level. And it just makes those hard conversations, which happen in every relationship, easier to alchemize. And one thing that I think I always find myself so grateful to mushrooms for is the lessons that I am always learning. So before if something went wrong, I think I would slip into more of a victimhood or bitter and just angry that I’m…
you know, that my schedule is messed up or that I’m just irritated. And now if something bad happens, whether that’s a car accident or a death in the family or money or any number of things, life things, I find myself moving towards the lessons and finding gratitude in that moment because I feel myself growing and that is for sure from the medicine. So when a couple does that together, when a father can do that, gosh, magic.
Sam Believ (28:22.768)
Beautiful as you say if they might if they microdose together, they probably stay together I say the same thing the couples that drink together and I’m talking about ayahuasca stay together because if let’s say a mom starts microdosing she will slowly also start growing spiritually and mentally and eventually she might feel herself a bit Separate from her husband because she he wasn’t growing so it should be done together I get
Right now, all sorts of ideas coming about how to organize moms and dads, ayahuasca retreats. So we will talk about it later. Maybe we can partner up. I know you, I saw some videos of you like going on the news, talking about micro dosing and stuff like that. How does it get received? Do you get ridiculed? Do people listen? What’s the reaction when you talk about those topics?
Tracey Tee (29:01.476)
Mmm!
Tracey Tee (29:20.326)
You know, I have to say of all the news I’ve been so fortunate to have discussions about or go on, I would say 99 .5 % of all the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. We really don’t get a lot of negative feedback. I credit that to my relationship with God, the prayers I said before I started this company.
before I accepted this mission really is probably a better way to say it. And I think it also is a credit to our culture, to our society right now, who is hungry for change. And when someone speaks and relates to a normal mom or dad, however that looks, and you feel like those words might be yours, there just isn’t a lot of reason to ridicule and…
And anything that we have gotten that’s negative has truly just been from a place of misinformation. It’s just people who have bought into the misinformation that our government, governments collectively has siphoned to the public for 50, 60, 2000 years. And they’ve just decided to believe it. So it’s coming from a place of ignorance and fear. And it’s just hard to get upset about that because it’s just, you just don’t know the facts. But I’m really lucky to,
to have a lot of support kind of wherever I go.
Sam Believ (30:52.4)
Yeah, I think the society is getting more and more ready to receive this message and understand that, you know, maybe desperate enough with the mental health crisis that is going on. Tracy, I’m curious, you know, let’s say somebody who listens to this episode, they like your message and they want to learn about your program. Can you talk about them? How does it look like? More or less, you know, sum up what is the…
What does the program look like?
Tracey Tee (31:24.124)
Sure, yeah, we have kind of three buckets. Our first one is our private community membership. So I have a beautiful portal with thousands of mothers that’s completely off social media. And we have a private membership. It’s only $2 .22 a month. So ridiculously affordable. And it’s literally like Facebook for moms on shrooms. And that is the place where we invite.
mothers who are seasoned psychonauts and have been working with entheogenic medicine forever and have never really felt like they had a community, or mothers who are curious but still may be terrified, just want to learn more but don’t want to Google ayahuasca or psilocybin or follow a hashtag, which we know is a terrible idea. They can come and just learn from each other. And it’s just a constant conversation of mothers talking about their own experiences with this medicine, along with
tons and tons of resources for women to, for mothers to empower themselves. So that’s like the first bucket. The second bucket are our longer courses. We have a three and a half month, like get started microdosing course that’s really for the mom when she’s ready. We believe it takes about three months to feel that medicine working in your body, to unlearn some of the things that you believe not only about.
psychedelics, but about how medicine works, you know, unlearn the allopathic role and, and allow yourself to go through a few cycles of feelings. And those are held in containers of 10 women or less. So they’re super intimate. And you’re really supported from day one, as you create an intentional practice, because the truth is, is that in the end of the day, microdosing is like not really rocket science. It’s the intention behind it and the and the why behind why anyone does works with plant medicine.
is the important thing. And it’s actually a lot harder to establish than you might think. And then we have eight -week courses that come out throughout the year that are shorter and kind of condensed and focused around a central theme. So for example, right now, I’m about to launch one in mid -February that’s called Motherhood Microdusting and Magnetism, and it’s all about unblocking the throat chakra. So we roll those out a few times a year. And then we have just some…
Tracey Tee (33:40.614)
really great basic 101 courses. We have microdosing 101 for moms and macrodosing 101 for moms. And that is just the how, the why, the what the heck is this all through the lens of a mom and how she would want to enjoy that information. And those are kind of instant downloads. You can read it on the airplane in the middle of the night while you’re breastfeeding. Easy course packed full of information and resources.
And that’s really just my mission. Like I said earlier, it’s just to educate and empower women. And I think we have to learn about this medicine before we start working with it so that we have a full 360 degree relationship with it. So that’s really what we do.
Tracey Tee (34:30.172)
Oops. Sam, I can’t hear you.
Sam Believ (34:37.712)
My bad, I switched off the microphone. We’ll cut this piece out. Tracy, interesting question. I’m very curious. You not only do microdosing, you also do macrodosing. Can you share maybe the most profound experience or most crazy experience you’ve had on mushrooms?
Tracey Tee (35:01.18)
Oh gosh. There’s so many.
Tracey Tee (35:10.32)
Gosh, oh, I’m like, which one do I tell?
Sam Believ (35:13.968)
Hehehe.
Tracey Tee (35:16.444)
share a short story. I went to an Airbnb in the mountains of Colorado because I was writing and I just needed to get away and I brought medicine with me, you know, just as like, well, maybe I’ll do it, but I wasn’t really planning on it. And that morning, I had gotten up, I had made a really nice breakfast and I was just hanging out in the kitchen by myself. And I’m not one who kind of feels her guides come in outside of the medicine space very frequently. But it was like my
My entire Galactic team just showed up at the breakfast table and they were like, you’re doing medicine today. You won’t be writing. You’re taking the medicine. And I was just like, no way. There’s no way. I don’t have the time. I’ve got to go home tomorrow. I have all these things to do. And the messages were just so insistent. Like this is what you’re doing. You need to walk the walk. You need to get clear on some things. And I remember like in the kitchen, I said out loud, I go, well, I just had breakfast. And…
they didn’t seem to care. And so I, I, I heeded the call and that was one of the first times I had done the medicine kind of unguided and done it by myself and, uh, poured it into, um, put some mushrooms into some cacao and went on a walk and ended up going out into the forest in January in Colorado and like bundled up and essentially laid on the cold, hard ground surrounded by snow and had like my first official sort of initiation.
And it was during that journey where I was really asked, are you ready to follow this path? Like truly, are you ready to serve like you say you are? And it was this massive, massive questioning and initiation is the best word where I really had to get honest with myself about is this what I want to do probably for the rest of my life? And I will tell you that I wasn’t sure for quite a while. Felt like hours, I cried. I…
I questions, I cursed, and then I finally said yes. The minute I said yes, it was like I was transported through this portal. So many lessons from that day have come out to play over the past year. It was really beautiful. There’s more to say about that, but that’s like a two -hour podcast interview.
Sam Believ (37:37.434)
That sounds very familiar. It’s really hard to explain a psychedelic experience with human words. They’re just not enough. When you said you lay down on the ground, it reminded me of an experience I had about six months ago. Obviously, when we work with ayahuasca, I personally drink ayahuasca once a month, but sometimes I can’t for reasons of business.
There was this rough period I was going through emotionally in between two retreats. So I thought I’m going to go get a microdose and I didn’t really measure it. I think I ended up taking like a gram. Luckily it’s not, and I’m very sensitive to all the medicines, including ayahuasca. Luckily, maybe people who are on that mission are extra sensitive because medicines know like we need to get into it. So.
Tracey Tee (38:14.33)
Oh.
Tracey Tee (38:21.052)
Me too! Oh my gosh, I’m so sensitive.
Sam Believ (38:32.784)
And I also felt the desire to lie on the ground. Luckily so here in Columbia, it’s always warm and it was on the grass, not in the snow. And I was just, yeah, just rolling around and crying and, you know, just releasing emotions. It was, it was really nice, very, very difficult, but also I felt really nice. So yeah, it’s a, you know, there’s billion other things that’s happening, but that’s, that’s the kind of description you can give. Um, I, so as, as you know, we work with the Alaska, um,
Tracey Tee (38:56.572)
Yeah.
Sam Believ (39:02.416)
exclusively. We’re not allowed to serve mushrooms here in Colombia, at least for now. But I do oftentimes, when people want to come to do ayahuasca, they need to stop taking antidepressants. And a lot of times I recommend them to use mushrooms and microdosing to help with that. Obviously, I’m no expert on mushrooms and I know a lot of mothers might also be
on antidepressants and other medications. So would you, and of course not a medical advice, just from point of view of personal experience, what do you think? Could it be a good way of doing it?
Tracey Tee (39:44.092)
Yeah, we’ve seen a lot of women have a lot of success on following a very strict and methodical titration protocol. And I absolutely recommend that there’s some amazing pharmacologists out there that have, you know, Ben Malcolm, the spirit pharmacist, Emily Culpa, who are who have dedicated their path to the intersection of pharmaceuticals and psychedelics. And so I recommend anyone who wants to titrate down to consult with someone like that unless you’re
you know, God willing, your doctor actually understands it and work on a slow titration protocol to take yourself off because it can be very destabilizing to just quit SSRIs cold turkey. And microdosing can kind of swoop in and fill in those spaces to make the side effects a lot less. And we’ve seen that time and time again, where you’re not necessarily feeling.
some of the larger, more profound effects of microdosing because an SSRI can typically blunt the effects of psilocybin. But it really is coming in as like this nice, cozy, cuddly little helper as you titrate off and still allowing, like in real time allowing you to rewire your neural pathways as your body detoxes from the SSRIs. So I think it can be done.
well and we have seen great results. I just think it has to be done carefully and you have to have some patience. It’s not like I want to start microdosing and I want to stop my Zoloft and I want to do it this week. It doesn’t work like that. And as you know, and I know all of this medicine is slow. And so giving yourself time, and that’s why our foundational course is three and a half months, because it does take time, especially if you’ve been on an SSRI for a long time, you’re going to feel really different.
and it’s gonna be very unfamiliar territory to you when you titrate off. And that’s where microdosing can come in and support for sure.
Sam Believ (41:44.976)
Thank you Tracy. Well, it’s been a great episode. I know you’re a busy mom and you have to run. So before we finish any last recommendations for people and where can people find you and moms that are listening, where can they sign up for your program?
Tracey Tee (42:02.78)
Thank you. You can just go to momsonmushrooms .com. All of our information is there. I have a love -hate relationship with social, but if you want to follow us on Instagram, we’re at momsonmushroomsofficial, but I really encourage every mother who’s listening to join The Grow, which is our private community membership, $2 .22 a month. Just come in and join our community and relearn what it feels like to just talk to other moms without an expert.
at the helm. There’s no, it’s certainly not me, there’s no guru or some right or dogmatic way to do things. It’s just conversations and I believe that’s what the medicine is asking. And in terms of advice, I would just say to anyone who’s thinking about working with any plant medicine, know your why. Get real clear on why you want to do it. It may be something that you just want to experience.
But if you’re feeling like you’re feeling pressured from friends or family who have had these transformational experiences, if you feel like you’re at your last rope and you know this is the only thing that’s gonna fix you, I would just sit a moment longer and really understand your why and get clear. And then after you know your why, ask yourself, am I actually ready to change? Because whether it’s mushrooms or ayahuasca or a bogey or peyote or any number of entheogens.
you will be asked to change the things about yourself that are no longer working. And if you’re not willing to do that, you can drink all the ayahuasca on the planet and it’s never gonna help. So just be ready, be ready for change. And if it takes crying on a forest floor for five hours to do it, so be it. But change is the big equation.
Sam Believ (43:49.52)
Thank you, Tracy. And hopefully that’s not the last episode we do. And then the next one we’ll talk about mothers on ayahuasca. Guys, thank you for listening and I will see you in the next episode.
Tracey Tee (43:58.844)
Absolutely, I would love to.
Sam Believ (44:07.408)
I will then add a bit of an outro, summing up the…