Erin: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following, we break those rules, and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, and more self expressed. I'm your host, Erin Keating. In this episode, I talked to Tracey Tee. She is the founder of Moms on Mushrooms. Yeah, that kind of mushrooms. She teaches courses about microdosing mushrooms and she has an online community exclusively for moms. Yeah, magic mushrooms are back, but in a whole new therapeutic way, we get pretty woo and dig into things like the Instagram fueled quote unquote spirituality boom. If you think I'm skeptical, maybe I am the movement around the [00:01:00] healing power of psychedelics and the idea of sovereignty.
I had to ask what that really means and what it means is allowing ourselves to show up in all of our different forms. I loved this conversation. It opened my mind. And maybe my third eye. Take a listen.
Tracey Tee has been involved in the mommasphere for about 10 years, first co creating and starring in the cult hit touring comedy show for moms, The Pump and Dump Show, which hopefully you had the great privilege to see. It was amazing and hilarious. Today, she is the creator of the online microdosing course for moms called M.O. M. Incredible Branding stands for Moms on Mushrooms. Yeah, that's psilocybin mushrooms, the ones you took in college. But Tracey's mission is much deeper than getting moms to have psychedelic visions and see trees turn into claymation like, like I did. [00:02:00] She is part of the burgeoning plant medicine movement for personal growth and healing.
And I cannot wait to learn more about it. Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, Tracey.
Tracey: Thank you. Ironically, I never did shrooms in college, so I don't even get that contrast.
Erin: Yeah. Oh my God. Never did it. I was definitely a recreational psychedelics user. I never did tons, but I certainly did it enough to be like, okay, got what that was. And I think it's reemerged in the culture in such a totally different and reinvented way. Totally. So. As a person who didn't do drugs in college, I'm dying to hear about how this journey started for you.
Tracey: Yeah, it's a long hero's journey story that led me to being a psychedelic advocate in my mid 40s. I'll try to keep it short. Short answer is COVID. I feel like all you have to say is lockdown.
Erin: Ooh, yeah, everyone changed.
Tracey: Yeah. So the business that you spoke of the live comedy show that I had with my best [00:03:00] friend and business partner was a business 10 years in the making. And then when the lockdowns happened, we had to. Cancel a half a year's worth of shows, like 75 shows over the course of 10 days. And consequently the other half of the year. So we just didn't do any shows in 2020. And as a live performer, if you don't show up and do a show, that's the revenue for the company. And half of those shows were sold out. We had spent thousands on airplane tickets and hotel rooms.
So we just lost everything. And then when it really sunk in that this wasn't going anywhere, I made that like fateful phone call to my agent and our business was done. And so when you lose something for anyone who owns their own business, it's like. A child, it's another entity in your life. And the grief of that was palpable, but it had really forced me to go on this spiritual journey.
I had already been on one. Just, I think something happens when you turn 40. And the minute I turned 40, I remembered [00:04:00] looking around at this fancy restaurant that I was at thinking, There's more here. There's more here than what I am witnessing right now. Like more to life? More to life, more to my brain, more to my passions.
And even though I was in this creative business that was doing great, I was having like the time of my life with my best friend. I just felt like.
Erin: It's that David Byrne song. This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.
Tracey: I've been on this path and COVID just launched me deeper. And long story short, I ended up going to account a camping trip with the same best friend and a bunch of moms.
And Shana's like, you know what? We're going camping and you're going to take mushrooms and you're going to put on your big open hands and you're going to do some psychedelics for the first time in your life. Get over yourself. And I had been really called to plant medicine before that and had been studying it, but very much from afar.
So when I drove up to that camping trip, I remember thinking to myself, if this is the experience I think it's going to be like, there might be something here. Like I had already been following Paul Stamets. I'd already read a bunch of books. It [00:05:00] was really in my sphere. I just was. Fearful to try it, frankly,
Erin: When you say the phrase plant medicine, because I think some of our listeners might not know what that is. And I was only introduced to that idea a couple of years ago, post separation, when I started to open up my life to all the things I used to be interested in. I want to know what that means, because I think it's part of a movement.
Tracey: It is, and thank you for asking. I use it loosely because it's the most common understandable term right now. Technically, plant medicine is anything that has medicinal properties, healing properties in the plant world. So that's the broadest version. So that can be anything from chamomile tea. to cannabis and magic mushrooms get looped in there, even though technically mushrooms are not a plant, they're a fungi, but come on, let's just everyone chill out just a little bit.
Erin: Right. Only Paul Stamets, who is like the father of sort of mushroomology.
Tracey: Exactly. So another term, [00:06:00] so plant medicine is broad and then it can go down into psychedelic or in theogenic medicine, which are plant medicines that have psychedelic, psychotropic. Properties to them. Okay. More than anything, a magic mushrooms would be an entheogen or just a psychedelic, like for example, cannabis is not considered a psychedelic 'cause It doesn't elicit the hallucinogenic properties and it works differently in the brain.
Erin: Great. That's a really helpful distinction. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Back to your amazing camping trip.
Tracey: Yeah. And so went camping, loved it. Had the time of my life, uh, was confirmed in all the ways I had that perfect First. Mushroom experience that nobody forgets and drove away from it thinking. Okay, like there is something with this stuff I get it which set me down a path of really looking into microdosing And so this is only three years ago and there really wasn't that much information even about microdosing back then But it just made sense to me from a female perspective From a mom perspective from a holistic [00:07:00] perspective.
I had had a Full hysterectomy when I was 41, so about four years prior. And when you have a full hysterectomy, that means they take all the parts like ovaries, cervix, uterus, fallopian tube. So I had nothing, which launches you into surgical menopause. So went in on a Tuesday for surgery, woke up Wednesday and full menopause cause I had no more hormones in my body.
So navigating that shock to the system was palpable and I had been on Welbutrin to bridge the emotional. distress that causes and so grateful, so genius that my doctor suggested that, but I was looking for a way to get off of it. I didn't want to take it forever. So I was curious if microdosing would help mimic that and help me with living in menopause.
What is microdosing? Microdosing is taking a sub perceptual amount of a psychedelic. And the theory is that If you take a small amount more consistently over [00:08:00] time, in a more regular pattern, your body enjoys the same therapeutic effects that you essentially would by taking a large dose journey, where you are seeing trees turn into claymation, and that very expansive, or maybe dark, epiphanal journey that you get with a much larger dose, like 3 grams or above.
If you take a small sub perceptual dose, which means you're not feeling any of the psychedelic effects at all. Okay. So between 50 milligrams and 250 milligrams versus three grams. So very, very small amount. It is positive that that those are the effects. And so right now we're in this gray area because the science hasn't caught up.
It's very hard. How do you test microdosing without? Moving a bunch of people into a lab and living there and they all eat the same thing. They all take the same amount.
Erin: You know, how do you eliminate the variables in order to sleeps? So impact of the MicroG?
Tracey: Yeah. Like are you drinking coffee? Are you drinking alcohol? Are you on an ssri? There's so many variables. So [00:09:00] those of us who believe in the power of it, it just really go with anecdotal evidence, which is thousands of the thousands of people saying, this has changed my life. And so I eventually fell into a course myself. I've started microdosing and really just felt my life just kind of go like this.
Erin: People will take an antidepressant or any kind of medication that a doctor prescribes and not really think twice about it. I think people are like, Oh my God, you took the medicalization of your mental health into your own hands and you start taking clearly there's got to be some amazing benefits. I'd love to pinpoint what you've experienced and what you've seen other people experience, because I have heard many people talk about how microdosing changed their lives, but I don't exactly know what they mean when they say that.
Tracey: So it's complicated to perceive. You don't understand it until you do it. And then if you don't really want to do psychedelics for whatever reason, it's really hard to correlate because our point of reference is three buckets, right? An SSRI, [00:10:00] which is passive. So we take an antidepressant and you kind of sit back and wait for it to
Erin: Make you less depressed
Tracey: Like just dial it all down. And it kind of does that for you. If you have a glass of wine, it has a numbing effect, right? You are relaxed. If you take cannabis, same thing. If you eat food, you feel satiated. There's a rush and psychedelics or microdosing. I always like to say it just softens my frayed edges, but it's more co created. It's not as passive. I have to have an intention going into it. I have to buy into this. I have to know what I want versus I have a headache.
I'm going to take an Advil. I'm going to wait for it to get fixed. What I'm doing in a microdosing setting is okay. I'm in these intrusive thoughts, whatever they are. I don't like them. It's not my best part of me. I want to do better. I'm going to use microdosing as an ally to help push me through these intrusive thoughts.
And so in doing that, it just calms those frayed nerves around us so [00:11:00] you can breathe. And instead of the numbing out effect, you become more present. So ironically, When a lot of people start, you actually feel more emotions. You actually feel more depressed. Potentially. You can feel more sad, more angry, more grief because everything is rising to the surface and it's taking all those stuck emotions and getting it up and out of you.
But the difference is that's leaving. So microdosing for me when I'm working through something or an emotion or a trigger, even if it's just being irritated with my family. You know, when it bubbles up, I notice it almost physically in my body. I'm like, Ooh, not feeling great. Like here comes old Tracy. And then I imagine that issue as your palm of your hand and I'm looking at it and it's looking at me and I'm acknowledging it.
And then instead of it going back down. Which is traditionally what can happen, um, with an SRSRI or even kind of traditional American psychology model. You just talk about it, you relive your trauma, but you don't release it. And so, this, I'm like, okay, [00:12:00] issue. And, and the issue's like, okay, Tracy. And we have a stare off, and then I'd like to imagine that that issue just turns into butterflies and floats away.
And it's done. I acknowledged it, and I let it go. Now, that's not to say I'm fixed for everything, it's just one onion layer. That's done and doesn't come back to me anymore. And so, it's just a different philosophy, but again, if we go back to more standard issue, um, anecdotal things, people say it lessens anxiety, helps with overwhelm, um, makes you feel more present, more clear headed, your receptors are moving in, in new ways, forming, forming new neural pathways, um, which just allows you to Deal with things that life throws at you with all systems firing rather than with half systems firing Which might be a good thing if you're in a deep cycle of depression But you're also not using the whole gamut of your brain to really [00:13:00] tackle something and move through it.
Erin: That makes sense. Yeah, I think so. I mean Talk therapy is something that I really believe in and I've been doing and probably will always do for my whole life But it is a mirror And you can see over time how you're working through things in therapy, but the goal is not always. To let it go the goal is to gain self knowledge or to see your patterns and then what you do with that is up to you, but there isn't a dialogue around release and I think a lot of people turn to the spiritual for that and it sounds to me like mushrooms In this microdosing context, there's some sort of connecting of the dots.
Tracey: Yeah, I think that's a good way to say it. And it happens, I believe, [00:14:00] from being in a bit more of an expansive yet present space. So you're in, you're both times aware of the possibilities. Without the fear or narrative surrounding that awareness and you're also very present So you're not as distracted or feel like you need to escape the situation I feel like it's a little bit of an ally to help you say, okay I'm just gonna stay here and I got this.
Erin: And I'm okay with what so I can be with what's so as opposed to pushing it aside or numbing it or for me, I was used overwork as a way to numb emotional stuff or to avoid interpersonal problems in my marriage. And I think it sounds to me like. This might help people who are using other crutches that maybe aren't as effective.
Tracey: Yes, but the big difference is you have to be ready to acknowledge that and then [00:15:00] like ready to work with that. So it's not going to release you from the urge. To dive back into work to escape something. It's just going to make you hyper aware of it. And then you have the choice, which way you're going to go. And that's where I think, um, is a culture. My concern for this is that the hype trains real big and Americans love a magic bullet, right? Like we love a miracle cure. We love something that's fast, easy, 30 days or less.
Erin: Get her done, you know, everybody just shoot yourself up and you're skinny all of a sudden and you don't have to work for it. Yeah.
Tracey: Yeah. And so everything that you said, I believe can happen. And I've seen it happen not only in my own life, but in the lives of women who have joined moms on mushrooms. But it takes a fair amount of effort and commitment.
It's just like getting skinny. Ozempic is really good for a lot of people who have insulin problems or can't get ahead of their metabolism, their blood sugar is off, and it stabilizes so that you feel like you can actually go work out. Maybe Magic Mushroom is the ozempic [00:16:00] of mental health.
Erin: There's a new tagline for you.
Tracey: Sorry everyone in the psychedelic space. But I get when a mother, when a mom is ready to kind of join and she wants to make a change and usually she's coming to Moms on Mushrooms. Because nothing else has worked, right? The majority of the women who are in our community or take a course are on one, if not several medications.
Not the least of which are sleep meds on top of head meds. And the therapy's not working. The meds, I don't know how long I've been on them. I don't even know what they're doing. I definitely don't know how to get off. I'm scared to get off because I don't know what will happen. And you don't know what your baseline is anymore because you've been somewhere that you've just been guided to, but not that you took yourself there. So you don't know what low is and you don't really know what high is anymore.
Erin: God, wait, let's slow down and talk about that for a second, because I feel like so many people are on antidepressants. There's a whole culture of [00:17:00] pro and con about it. People have very strong feelings about it. They are really helpful and they are also maybe over prescribed, maybe there's too much medicalization of our mental health. And I think it's so interesting that the moms who come to you are at the end of the road. I've had that experience around weight and body image, and I landed at Overeaters Anonymous. I did not want to be in a 12 step program, but that is what helped me, at the end of the day, get my head straight around this stuff and get better and heal around that stuff.
It sounds to me like there is some parallel there, in terms of... mental health and really you've tried everything and maybe, maybe mushrooms will be the answer.
Tracey: Yeah. And I moms on mushrooms is the portal, right? We're the space where that's going to give you permission to try it. Mushrooms are the assistant.
They're not the answer. You're the answer. You are always the answer. I mean, that's true in any space. [00:18:00] At the end of the day, we are our own medicine. Maria Sabina said the best. You are the medicine. What the mushrooms do is, they're like a little friend that like, pushes your butt up when you're trying to get up over a fence.
They're just like, you can do it and I'll hold you up, I'll help you, no problem. They don't get you over the fence, your legs and your arms and your brain get you over that fence. And you had to make the choice to even cross the fence. They're just like a really good friend that's holding you up. And so the answer lies in that communion of intention of wanting to change of saying this scenario, this combination of meds, this life I'm living, it's not working.
Same as it ever was. And I'm honestly ready on a soul level to try something different and if you feel called to something like a psychedelic, something like magic mushroom microdosing, and if you have that drive, like you're really ready, you're really ready to start working out. And there's times in our lives when our bodies are just like, I'm [00:19:00] too tired. I don't actually want to. I don't want to go with that. But if you're ready for that, then that is the magic combination. And it's not anything that you're just going to take a capsule and three days later be like, Oh, thanks mushrooms. My life has changed. It's never going to work. Um, so it's a much more co created integrative approach to mental health than what is a culture we've been used to.
And I think some of that just comes from this disconnection that we're all feeling. We don't have a lot of ceremony in our culture. Where's community? We don't have. Elders giving us sage advice for free because they just love you and want to see you thrive. We don't have women around us to pitch in without judgment or that aren't too busy, or you know what I'm saying?
There's no communal aspect. And then even in our spiritual or religious sense, churches, there's no connection. You're not outside sitting under the tree saying how amazing God is. You're not dancing and [00:20:00] saying, look at this Eden on earth that we live in. You're in this. Square box, you're inside, you've got a man looming over you telling you how to think.
It's all separate. And so the mushrooms like are really good at bringing people together. If you look at the mycelial web that Paul Stamets can so beautifully talk about.
Erin: Oh, and if you haven't seen Fabulous Fungi, the documentary on Netflix, oh, sorry, Fantastic Fungi or Fungi? Fungi. Oh, okay. Fungi. Like a fun guy.
Fantastic Fungi on Netflix. It will blow your fucking mind. Yeah. It is. It's so cosmic, so epic, and it's literally just about mushrooms and how they underlie everything on earth and what the opportunities are in leveraging both the psychedelic properties and also the material properties of mushrooms. It really opened my eyes. In a way that I don't think a lot of things do I, um, beyond recommend it.
Tracey: And it was just so visually beautiful. Like we made our [00:21:00] daughter watch it. Cause even if you get bored with the science, just look at how they film this. I mean, it's absolutely stunning. Yeah.
Erin: It's this incredible time lapse photography and video that they recreated the growth of mushrooms in a studio setting in a controlled environment for over years. Yeah, it's really a labor of love. It's spectacular. Yeah, I think that speaks to how mushrooms have changed in our public dialogue I think maybe some people listening to this podcast are like Oh mushrooms. That's like from the 60s. That's like acid That's like Yeah, I'm gonna trip and oh my God, let's hear that Jimi Hendrix solo.
That's not what this is. This is along the lines of people taking ayahuasca and you probably have a point of view about the distinction between mushrooms and ayahuasca and what people are seeking in those experiences. I'd be curious to hear your point of view on that. But I think it's not a counter culture thing so much. Now, I live in a bubble. I live in Los Angeles. I tend to intersect with more progressive things and things that are sort of ahead of mainstream [00:22:00] culture. But along with the rise of THC and CBD and the medical marijuana movement, I see the sea change in the way that people are thinking about these plants and their properties and how they can be thought of differently and used differently in your life.
And I'll just speak to my own experience. I recently have taken mushrooms just in chocolate for fun and it has been so beautiful. Such a beautiful and connecting kind of experience. I've also been on a plant medicine retreat. Where someone was guiding the process and making sure that we were all on our own journeys and having the depth of experience that we intended to have.
I'm also a big believer in edibles and THC and marijuana in general. I don't like to drink alcohol. Doesn't make me feel very good, but THC does the job for me. I think we all need these things that take the edges off our anxiety and that sense of [00:23:00] overwhelm. There's so many moms and so many working moms. I think in this modern endless email, endless communication, 24 hour news cycle, relentless information culture, we're all fucking overwhelmed. And so it's not surprising to me, it's not surprising to me that people are looking for alternatives.
Tracey: Yeah. And to come back to your point about the sixties, it's not a counterculture thing, but there's some wisdom this time around that we're bringing into the mistakes that were made in the sixties. Cause there were a lot of mistakes. Like, do I think people should just be dropping tabs of acid from planes over crowds of people? Oh, that's terrible. Good idea. Um, conversely, as I grow into this more and reflect on my own life, do I think there should be a liquor store on every street corner or should we be spending our taxpayer dollars voting on like how to have better access to more booze?
No. [00:24:00] Do I see those things as very similar? I sure do. They're not a direct correlation, but this gross access with abandon, I think some wisdom and some respect are being brought in God willing into this movement where we are taking the lessons we learned from the 60s and we're looking at where we're at right now, which is exactly what you said.
It's overwhelmed. It's too much. We don't even have to go. We don't even have to lose. It's just too fucking much. It's too much for all of us. It's not sustainable. And I believe that there is a calling in our souls. A heartbeat in the earth that we're hearing. I think women are hearing it maybe a little bit louder right now in this moment.
But I think men are hearing it too that is like... Something's just not right. There's so much good. There's so much amazing this about technology and we should celebrate that and be grateful. And we live in homes that are heated and we have clean water and all these amazing things of living in the West.
And also something is deeply missing, deeply missing, and we can't quite put our finger on it. And I believe [00:25:00] that. Plant medicine, psychedelics, and theogenic medicine, it's all heart medicine. And what we need to do is leave up here, when up here is always going to tell us send another email, download another app, make another phone call, log on to another meeting, add another thing, another, another, another, another.
That's what our brains are going to tell us to do. Our hearts are going to remind us that we don't need to do all that. Our hearts are going to tell us what's true. And as a society, we've left a lot of this leading from this brain, which is our heart, which actually makes the decisions first before it sends things to our brain.
And plant medicine, generally speaking, is a heart opener. So we're dropping back down into that space and starting to say no to stuff. But all of that just comes when you're ready to put your foot down to the madness. And I think that's where we are. And then I think we can take advantage of the benefits of 50 years of, well, some science that wasn't shut down.
Of thinking about this in a different way and then [00:26:00] approaching it not from a... Completely reactive counterculture rage against the machine, although there's definitely some of that and deservedly so, I'm certainly a part of that, but like, but more from a place of healing and that word just, it just takes the charge out of stuff.
We all deserve to heal. We all deserve to be happy. We all deserve to feel joy. And it's actually quite difficult as humans. It's a difficult thing to figure out. And it's not just one thing that allows you to feel joy. And we're also very hesitant to feel uncomfortable. So that very, you know, so we don't like being depressed.
We don't like feeling sad or grief as a culture. We don't wail when someone passes, we don't allow to walk in the streets and throw our bodies around and get it out and be held and seen and nurtured by our communities while we go through our own transmutation of grief. That's not allowed. So you're just bottling all that up inside. Everyone's gonna blow.
Erin: Hmm. [00:27:00] Hmm. It's really profound. And I, I have a little bit of an allergic reaction to the woo, right? So I always describe myself as woo adjacent, like I'm always, always. Right next to the woo. Right. Like I will read my horoscope, but I won't admit it. I won't admit how much I really want to get guidance from that.
I will go on a plant medicine retreat, but I won't quite a hundred percent participate or feel part of. I'll be on my own thing. I was told I was having too much fun, by the way, on my plant medicine retreat. I was laughing too much and she was like, this is a healing, a sacred space. This is a spiritual experience. Those are the words she said. This is a spiritual experience. And I was like, Oh, she wants me to cry. Okay.
Tracey: There's nothing more spiritual than laughter. Literally nothing.
Erin: Fucking agree with you. I live in the comedy world most of my life. I believe in it. I'm a believer Totally but to be fair she was honoring the [00:28:00] intention that I had shared with her Which was I had some mourning to do for my marriage as it was starting to really dissolve And so I was like, okay fine. I'm a little offended but at the same time you're right I'm gonna go have a deep cry Um, and then we'll get that out of the way and maybe I'll go hang out with the guy with the guitar. But yeah, I'm a little bit allergic to the woo. I'm a little bit allergic to even the word healing, even the word heart opening. And maybe that's just because I was raised to be tough and independent. And that in this period of my life, I'm cultivating my own softness.
Tracey: Can I give you some validation for that? Because if you're adjacent or if you're even slightly curious. The spiritual woo for the last, say, maybe 10 years has ramped up to a epic level that is also not sustainable and has been capitalized and the deepness, the nut of it tends to get taken out.You know, on the [00:29:00] 10 millionth Instagram post of a crystal
Erin: I was just going to say Instagram. I really believe that this sort of short dose, superficial, beautiful white women and crystals and flowy pants, just selling me another fucking thing.
Tracey: It's triggering. And then it's so funny, just this morning, I was sitting outside journaling, probably being woo. And for some reason, I had this thought, what if everyone on Instagram? Just was actually there to help each other and what if I viewed everyone on Instagram that their actual intention is was that they just want to help you and it comes off in really bad ways, but the trolliest troll like just desperately wants you to see their point, you know, because they think they're right.
They just want to be heard. They're just lonely. Well, they also think that it's helpful, right? They might think that they're right and it's better. So from a They're very kind. I am being very kind, but it allowed me to look at it from a little bit less disdain and say, maybe that beautiful white [00:30:00] woman in all of her robes that I don't know where they get these clothes. I don't know where they're amazing. They're amazing. I want them. I don't know where they get this jewelry or how they're so skinny. I don't understand any of it. But what if I could just be like, you know what? But maybe she's really happy. Maybe she found something. She's just trying to explain it to us.
And she's caught in this web of perfectionism, which is a whole nother thing that we can talk about as women, especially she can't just get on there and with zits and greasy hair and be like, guys, I figured it out. Like it is amazing.
Erin: This crystal helps. I'm not going to buy that crystal for me.
Tracey: No, you're not. Cause we're judgy too. Right. So we're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't. But, uh, but I, I get why you're hesitant because I was that girl. And now when you feel it in your body and you feel your heart crack open, there's no other words for it. You're just living with an open heart, you know?
Erin: So I know the truth of that. I've experienced that myself. I just, I think as we reinvent ourselves and you've been [00:31:00] through a radical reinvention, as we reinvent ourselves, in my mind, the women that I see who are. willing to take the step out of all the things they thought they were supposed to be into the things that they actually want to be and who they feel they are inside. You can be softer. You can be more open. You can be more willing. If you have said to yourself, I'm ready to take this risk, whatever the cost is in my life.
Tracey: Inside that too, I get why people just change how they dress. And I get the hippies, like, you don't want to wear tight clothes. You want to wear flowy stuff because you feel so good all the time. As a society, we also have to allow that woman to go softer and to evolve and to change. And the problem I think right now is. There's this giant comparison screen that's just reflecting back to us opposing viewpoints, one of which is you have to look like this goddess at Burning Man, otherwise you're not [00:32:00] spiritual or you're not psychedelic, or you just have to remain a mess because you're not allowed to change.
And in the middle, I think is that again, bringing it back to the other amazing benefits is sovereignty. Which is the, well, you just are who you are, like actually learning who I am and allowing myself to show up in all my forms and all my expressions. It's kind of the truest of the, I don't give a fuck mindset because you just are you and all of the other peripheral BS just doesn't matter anymore. And that's personal freedom. Then you don't need identity politics or labels. You're just you and all of her complicated, bizarre, freaky deaky, dark, beautiful aspects. And I think the medicine brings you back to that. And then the trick is you have to say, okay, I want to be that. I'm ready to be that without.
Erin: [00:33:00] And it's a process of allowing ourselves to be ourselves,
Tracey: which is surprisingly difficult.
Erin:I know it sounds so simple, but I think you get all these expectations that you layer upon yourself. You get all these stories, you get all these rules. Part of the reason that this podcast exists is because I realized I was living this, this Life that was dominated by an unconscious list of rules that I was following and I was fucking miserable, right?
Right? And now my life is confusing and it totally doesn't make a huge amount of sense from the outside but from the inside of me Things feel aligned and they feel better and I feel more myself and I feel more self expressed and if I want to fucking take mushrooms, I'm going to take mushrooms. If I want to do whatever, I'm going to do that thing because I spent so many years doing the thing I thought I was supposed to do and getting all the cash and prizes and now [00:34:00] I'm like, okay, I did that.
Let's see what I want to keep from that.
Tracey: And also, like, how did I get here? I keep thinking that song. How did I get here?
Erin: Like, what is Letting the days go by.
Tracey: Letting the days go by. I think that there's a lot of power in saying, if I want to take the mushrooms, I'm going to do the mushrooms. Like, we just, even when I say that, I'm like, oh, no, don't say it like that, Erin, because there's so much programming on our shoulders. Of, you have to sit in this box, you have to follow these rules, and I'm not saying be an asshole. There's obviously norms of society that we need to follow. Of course. In being a good person, but again, if you go back to that heart space, you're just gonna naturally be a good person because You feel connected to other people.
One of the most powerful things to say is, I am you. If I am you, then I'm not going to hurt you. I want the best for you. I want you to be healthy and happy.
Erin: We're going to make that Instagram's new tagline, I am you. Instagram, I am you.
Tracey: See, I am you. I look amazing. Look how amazing I look with these crystals in these robes.
Erin: Look how we're all just in this to help each [00:35:00] other. I love your vision. I love your vision.
Tracey: The shrooms, man.
Erin: I want to talk about a couple more things. So you recently spent some time at a psychedelics conference and they saw some pictures on your social media. And I am dying to know what that, how fucking crazy is it versus how much is it like, Oh, this is really a business. Like we are all professionals trying to work this thing out.
How much heart space. Is there in a conference center with everybody having booths? I'm just so curious about what the culture is from your point of view around this stuff.
Tracey: Yeah. Oh, thank you for asking. Actually, I haven't, it's been a month and I haven't, um, and I'm like weepy right now. The psychedelic science conference of 2023 was probably one of those few moments we all have in life that you just happen to [00:36:00] find yourself in that sea change. It was probably one of the most profound three days I have ever Had in my entire life, we had a booth, I was speaking on a panel, we were selling merch. We were there to announce moms on mushrooms to the world in a big way. I think part of me was there to prove myself to others in the space. We had a gathering.
I kind of did it all right. I had all the experiences lined up and it was a lot of work leading up to it. Postcards and what's our marketing plan like dollars and cents. It's not very.
And when I showed up there, the energy was unlike anything I had ever experienced. What happened in that moment was the whole collective excitement and optimism for what psychedelics can do to help people [00:37:00] just bubbled up and gathered in Denver at a ugly convention center and just vomited love and joy.
Over everyone. And I was shocked at the amount of support, the amount of honest and true compliments of how can I help you, of excitement for what other people are doing, pride in what they're doing, and kind of like my vision for Instagram. I looked around at one point and I was like, everyone is just here to help people.
Everyone's just here to help people. Whether you're promoting your ketamine clinic, or you're a grower and that grows lion's mane and you want to help people grow it from home, or you're a lab that's testing psychedelics, or you're a harm reduction, or you're a therapist who wants to introduce psychedelics into your therapy, or you're selling merch, or you're a yoga studio.
The gamut was even, you're a lawyer, you're [00:38:00] a chemist, you're a scientist. You are an OBGYN. Everyone was just there to help and it's so hard to put into words feeling that kind of love. I imagine it's what it felt like in the 60s if you were really in it and you were just like, I just know I've got to burn my bra because I want other people not to feel bad if they don't want to wear a bra.
It's so pure and that's what it felt like and The cynicism that I expected, you know, we hear a lot in this space like, oh, it's becoming capitalized and I'm not saying it's not. And there's a lot of fear around pharmaceutical companies. Putting this all in a bottle and just anesthetizing the whole thing.
And I do believe that is a, as a certain threat, but man, I talked to clergy. I prayed with people. I think underneath there is this energy that we're going to do it different. And I think that's what's propelling us deeper into this movement in a safer, more compassionate space. And it was all in Denver for three days [00:39:00] and it was. It's absolutely beautiful.
Erin: Ugh. It sounds cosmic. It sounds amazing. I'm so glad you had that experience. Yeah. Um. Well, and also because when we run our own businesses and we're doing our own thing out of our house, we feel alone, even though what you do is create a community for women to support each other, for moms to support each other and to heal themselves and help each other through microdosing. It is amazing to see it at scale.
Tracey: Yeah. And I suffer from the bouts, constant bouts of unworthiness, just like every other woman, working woman, especially. I'm new in this space. I have a lot of reverence for people who have been doing this underground for decades, who've laid the foundation for me to even be here, that have taken persecution and judgment and jail and lawsuits.
To allow moms to be here pretty easily, frankly, and I'm very well aware of that. So I showed up feeling like, who am I? Who am I even to be in this space? And I think that's the power of not only [00:40:00] people taking this medicine, but doing the work and setting ego on a chair next to it. There was not a lot of ego that I felt it was just like, Oh my gosh, like you too. Great. Let's keep doing this. It was amazing.
Erin: So what do we do about the fact that mushrooms are not legal? Like, are they illegal everywhere?
Tracey: So right now there's two states where it's decriminalized. Technically it's legal in Oregon and I'm not a lawyer and the laws are confusing, but what is happening generally across the country and a few select. States and then cities within those states is we're decriminalizing it, which puts it at the lowest level of law enforcement's interest or desire to persecute. And then it also takes the charge out of the felony and then allows people to become a little bit more autonomous with the medicine. So in Denver, here I am and it started first in Denver.
We decriminalized it, which allowed people to gift it. To gather it and to grow it. So you can grow it in your [00:41:00] home without worrying about the feds coming in and raiding you. You can give it to your friends without... Worrying about being coming a knowing drug dealer and you can grow it. You can't sell it yet.
So you can't open a shroom store. Right. Slows things down. And I believe then allows it the power to come back into the people. So we can figure this out while we work on making laws and work about education and stuff. So that's happening in pockets across the country. Oregon has made it a little bit more legal and more of a therapeutic sense.
So now licensed therapists can administer it. To a patient legally, if they're licensed by the state, and that's also what's going to happen here in Colorado. So that's where we're going. I formed another kind of advocacy community in partnership with the Psychedelic Medicine Coalition that's also started by a mother to really advocate for research at the federal level.
So that if we need the science, if everyone wants the science, well then let's fund it. Let's pay attention to it and let's get her done. So then we can say this actually isn't a [00:42:00] Schedule 1 drug. This doesn't, it's not actually working in the same way other Schedule 1 drugs. And let's go from the federal level down, but we're 5, 10 years out from it being something that's going to be like nationally legal, unfortunately, but it's happening.
Erin: Yeah. And I think the more public we are about this conversation, the mainstream press has been all about you. You have been on the Today Show, Piers Morgan, Dr. Phil, NPR, NPR I would expect, but wow, that's so interesting. Do they want to come burst your bubble? Do they want to? treat you like a freak show? Or are they respectful of what you're actually up to from a therapeutic and healing perspective?
Tracey: I'm so curious. I've been really blessed. And as someone who doesn't really think mainstream media is moving in the right direction, I've had no bigger ally than the mainstream media for the last year, the producers and the journalists who've come to me [00:43:00] genuinely, I believe are curious. I think there's two sides. One, No one knows what to do with a mom on shrooms. No one knows what to do.
Erin: No, I mean, that's the magic of the name of what your organization is. It's like, what the fuck? Like what? Moms on mushrooms? What mom has time to be on mushrooms? Yeah, but also like Moms are taking psychedelic drugs? What is going on?
Tracey: And then, how dare they? But also, please explain. And then there is just a genuine curiosity coming from Women in the mainstream media who are like, I want to tell your story. I get it. Let's get it out there. I have friends that are genuinely curious and just want the story to be told.
And it's been amazing because when we just start talking about it and take that Electric moral charge off the table, take the fear off the table of the misinformation from the Nixon papers that everyone read and bought [00:44:00] into, which was all BS. It was a political move and just give yourself permission to change your mind.
Give yourself permission to say. You know what? I bought into something. I thought it was real. And I'm going to forgive myself for making a mistake. And I'm willing to learn the truth and the stories that I've been involved in and on some level, just want to share my truth, my perspective on it. So I'm so grateful. It's been. Unbelievable. Even Dr. Phil.
Erin: That's so great. Even Dr. Phil.
Tracey: Which was the most psychedelic thing I'll ever do in my life. 100 percent biggest trip I ever took was going on that trip.
Erin: Catch me outside. Catch me outside. How about that?
Tracey: You know, I was like, Who am I? Where am I? What just happened? Yeah. Right. Am I tripping right now? Am I tripping? I'm pretty sure I am. This could not possibly be reality.
Erin: Yeah, pretty much. That is absolutely amazing. I'm going to ask you a question that, um, I ask everyone on the podcast. You [00:45:00] have rewritten the rules of your life in, through this phase in a really beautiful and radical way.
And I'm so blown away by it. Are there any other deal terms or contracts in your life that you feel like you need to, or you're ready to, or you're willing to rewrite?
Tracey: Mmm, I'm currently If I'm and actively working to rewrite the story, then I'm not good enough. That I don't know what I'm doing and that I don't deserve to be here.
I'm trying to write the narrative that I deserve to be here and feel it a hundred percent. I can say I deserve to be here on behalf of my family and I can say I deserve to be here on behalf of mothers, but taking up space and saying I deserve to be here. I tell women all the time, we need you and I believe it.
We need everybody. But I need to believe that I deserve it. And it's a big thing, especially when you're thrust into the limelight. I want to believe that [00:46:00] my story means something, not because I know it's helping other women discover an option that maybe they didn't know about, but it means something because it's coming through my mouth.
And I have a unique voice that needs to be heard. And that's a hard thing to accept.
Erin: Tracy, I have heard it again and again in my interviews with accomplished, impressive, incredible women on this podcast. I can do things for other people. It's so hard for me to speak for myself as myself and feel worthy of that.
And you fucking are.
Tracey: Well, woking on it. Thank you, medicine. But it's an old, old story that a lot of us are working on together, and I think that's the beauty of it. If I can see it in you and be inspired by you, then it gives me confidence to do it for myself. So grateful. Yeah. Grateful that you're doing that too.
Erin: Totally. Oh, I love this conversation. I hope it's helpful for people. I hope people open their minds to plant medicine. I hope [00:47:00] moms Come and microdose and take your course and find your community and find their way to healing and heart opening and all the things that you don't like that I really love, but I will only admit on this podcast that I will continue to learn to admit
Tracey: You know what, frame it however you want. You can change the words and that's okay too.
Erin: Okay. All right. Thank you so much, Tracy. It's been a joy. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever. I hope you enjoyed this mind blowing conversation and learned something new.
Please tell your friends about Hotter Than Ever. Go to Apple Podcasts and rate and review us. Five stars, please. Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Girard and PodKit Productions. Our Interim Associate Producers, Melody Carey, music is by Chris Keating, and vocals are by Issa Fernandez. Come back next [00:48:00] week, we have another amazing episode, just for you. Stay hot, ladies.