Episode 4 – Magic Mushrooms are Anticapitalist 🍄

Trigger warning: suicide

Mushrooms plant medicine is something I am DOWN with! I share my personal experience with magic mushrooms. I share how I was skeptical at first about mushrooms, which is the only psychedelic I’ve tried so far, and I share words of caution as well as the amazing healing transformations I’ve had thanks to magic mushrooms as a tool for seeing past the confines of white, cisheteronormative capitalism.

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Episode 4 – Magic Mushrooms are Anti-capitalist

Podcast Transcript Below

Hey everybody, welcome to the Unicorn Millionaire podcast. I’m your host, Charly Stoever. I’m a non-binary Latinx money coach helping my first gen clients become millionaires. I’m a formerly undocumented Mexican American and currently digital nomad, traveling all over the world and I’m super excited to have you here along with me on my journey. I talk about personal finance, money mindset, twerking, unicorns, rainbows, you name it. We’re here, we’re queer, and we are going to build wealth for ourselves and our communities.

Hey, y’all, how’s it going? I am really excited to share with you today a topic that I think excites people because there’s a lot of shame still around psychedelic use. It’s starting to finally become legalized, since it was criminalized. Slowly, but surely, we’re back on the mushroom game. And I had an amazing trip last night, which I’m super excited to share with y’all.

I do want to share a trigger warning that there will be mentions of suicide. So if that’s not something that you’re comfortable listening to then don’t listen to this episode. I just wanted to let you know that I will be mentioning suicide.

So yeah, that’s that but on to the good stuff, the fun parts. So before talking about my trip last night, I want to walk you through the history of Traveler Charly’s psychedelic use, because why not? And to do that, we’re gonna go way back to childhood and talk about how my immigrant parents always stigmatized drug use growing up, things were black or white.

People who had tattoos or did drugs or smoked cigarettes were horrible, awful people. So I’ve definitely had to unlearn that through therapy. And not impart my judgments on to people based off of the substances that they choose to use. So in terms of alcohol, which is a drug, I really didn’t drink much at all.

In high school, I was voted life of the party, but I was not partying, drinking, I was voted life of the party because I’d go to high school dances and get down alone in the middle of the dance floor and shake my ass to Gasolina or the Ying Yang Twins, shake it like a salt shaker. And I’d want to be home by 10pm.

I was voted like for the party because of my energy and I just did not give a fuck even back then when I thought I was a straight Republican and going to dances with Mormon boys who ended up just like ditching and dancing alone. Funny how that turned out.

I did not start drinking coffee until college. And I say that to normalize that coffee and alcohol are also drugs. They’re just normalized by capitalism, because they don’t really cause much introspection, like psychedelics do, and there’s a whole tobacco and alcohol industry that probably lobbies Congress, and that’s regulated and taxed, but those are also drugs just to normalize that that like if you drink coffee, that doesn’t make you a bad person. Just like if you smoke weed that doesn’t make you a bad person.

In terms of weed, I remember smoking weed when I went to Montreal when I was a sophomore in college. We went on a networking trip when I was in my Latinx students org. We smoked weed in the hostel bathroom, but I didn’t really feel much. I think we were just like giggling and laughing. But other than that, I was like, Okay, check that off the list. Didn’t really smoke weed much in college.

I went to Wellesley College. It’s a women’s college that well there’s nonbinary folks there. There’s trans women, there’s trans men who go there. But it was a pretty goody two shoes experience for me like I just drank but I never really did much drugs at all. And by drugs I mean weed pretty basic. So that’s my experience.

Fast forward to 2020 when I moved to Colorado after escaping Indianapolis, I got my remote, full time, MBA for free and then I moved to Colorado for three months to the Denver area and stayed with a friend and just remember doing a bunch of edibles and smoking weed to basically just numb ourselves and pass the time because COVID had just started.

And it was the thing to do, you could go to the store and just buy weed, so why not, but I never really had amazing epitomes if anything, weed had made me nervous and paranoid after a certain amount. So I was always more into the gummies with a higher concentration of CBD, rather than the THC, because I’m a highly sensitive person. And I don’t know if it’s different strains or if I’m set and setting if, if mentally sometimes I’m just not in a place where I should smoke a lot of weed. I’m very careful about that. And I never really feel like I’m creative or, or in the zone.

When I smoke weed, it’s more of just to relax and, and zone out, but I’m very conscious. Now, before smoking weed, I’m like, Am I doing this to numb out because I hate myself right now or I just want to chill and relax. So I’m very conscious of that.

I’m currently I’m in DC, where you can just walk into the store and buy weed and I have a vape pen. I don’t know how to crush the weed. I don’t know the grinder business. I don’t know how to operate bongs, these whole contraptions I never understand them I like that I can just push about in, take a puffer too. And that’s that and just relax at the end of the day.

So that is the history of my nonpsychedelic drug use pretty basic. It wasn’t until I moved to Mexico to Playa Del Carmen. After being there for about six months or so. I met a friend who was very into psychedelics and psychedelics are much more normalized in Mexico, because they’re part of the indigenous culture there too. And by psychedelics, I’m talking about magic mushrooms.

And yeah, in April of 2021, my friend asked me if I wanted to do them, and I was very skeptical, very cautious, because like I said, weed makes me paranoid. And I haven’t had like super life changing experiences doing weed, these basic drugs that are starting to get commercialized by capitalism, because they just like numb you out, or like coffee, caffeine that stimulates you so that you can be a productive worker.

So I remember, my very first ever experience with mushrooms, I was micro dosing, I’m a Virgo with the PTSD, I’m highly sensitive, and I love feeling a false sense of control. So I remember just micro dosing at first, like eating one mushroom, and then a second, and then a third one. And it took about 40 minutes to kick in, I was told to not really eat a lot, because I might throw up afterward. And it was really good experience as a starter experience to do it with somebody who was also very spiritual and highly sensitive.

And we did she called it and what is it an Inner Inner party, we’re gonna explore ourselves and get to know ourselves and that my introvert asked was like, fuck. Yeah, let’s do that. I’m down. I’m always contemplating the possibilities in life, just as a person, I am a very practical yet idealistic person. I love solving problems and helping people and I’m always thinking of the big picture, like, why am I here today? What are the possibilities? 5, 10, 20 years from now I zone out and I see the big picture, which is a skill that a lot of people appreciate, because not everybody does that.

But that’s something innately that I do, I love analyzing shit, and having that macro level and being like, Alright, why are we really here? What are the systems in place that are exploiting people and how can we flick them over and, and switch them on their heads, which is why I love saying that I’m an anti-capitalist.

But capitalism is the system we inherited without consent. So we’re going to work this system while we’re in it without feeling guilty, and then profit off that but really help our own communities like selling stock to donate to causes we care about or support BIPOC LGBT neurodivergent owned businesses, disabled own businesses. Yeah, so I see that as mutual aid.

But going back to my first trip, I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of calm, and I had been on antidepressants on Zoloft, sertraline, taking point five milligrams since I moved to DC the week Trump was elected because I’d just done the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and I moved here to try finding a job and it was stressful being here, just knowing Trump was down the street. And so for the first time in my life, I went on antidepressants.

I remember traveling to Latin America and going off them for about a month when I was in Mexico, at the time just backpacking and then getting back on them when I came back to the US because the energy in the US is intense. To me as a highly sensitive person, it’s very go, go, go. The capitalist machine, I just feel it here. People are running all over the place with things to do to make money and consume and buy shit and still feel dead inside. And I feel that when I come here.

So yeah, I was on antidepressants in April of 2021. Just like I call it micro dosing. Yeah, taking point five milligrams of sertraline, which I probably should not have done that. I’m not a mental health specialist. But after listening to podcasts, people say you should not do psychedelics when you’re on some sort of psychotropic drugs. So oops, this is not a recommendation to do mushrooms when you’re on antidepressants at all. But I didn’t know this.

So microdose. And I just remember having an overwhelming sense of calm. So mushrooms gave me a window into the possibilities of what it’s like to for once not feel anxiety. I just remember floating and existing and thinking, Wow, is this how people without anxiety can operate. They’re just chillin, they’re just like existing without a care in the worlds. And I just remember walking around floating and like sashaying around the room, and my friends were like, What are you doing, and I was like, This is what it’s like to not have anxiety. This is amazing.

And when we lay down and close my eyes, and started seeing some visuals, and mandalas, and we had the delta wave music going on blinds closes around five or 6pm. And we pulled the mattress in the living room and just for like giggling and talking about our visuals, my friends had taken a handful of mushrooms while I was micro dosing, so they were seeing very intense strong visuals. And we’re having like very intense reactions, and that was making my sensitive ass a little bit more stressed out, because I’m already sensitive to other people’s emotions as it is, and mushrooms just heightened that even more.

So I was thinking this is great, but I really feel like I want to do this alone. Because it’s taking away from my experience and my inner work because I just see mushrooms as the therapist that you didn’t know you had that’s been within you. And you can ask yourself questions or ask and when I say ask them mushrooms questions, you’re really asking yourself on mushrooms, but I’ll refer to talking to the mushrooms is really talking to yourself while you’re on psychedelics.

On mushrooms, because the way psilocybin works, after listening to a bunch of podcasts, I think it was helpful for me to understand how the heck it worked. And psilocybin basically makes parts of your brain that don’t normally talk to each other, just connect with each other. And you see things from different perspectives. And when you do that, for the first time, it can be shocking and overwhelming. So that’s why it was good to be with other people who had done them before and to really understand how they work.

Because as a highly sensitive person, when you’re used to having that false sense of control, and that being flipped over your head, it’s easy for you to lose your shit and freak out. So that’s why it was important for me to understand how they worked. So that was my first trip kind of like medium micro dosing seeing some visuals, pondering life, nothing too intense.

But then the next time I did them I had a really strong trip. I was alone my roommate was out of town. And I probably took about five milligrams which I think people call that the hero dose or whatever. And I just remember playing Mozart really loudly like on volume 50 in my apartment and blasting that shit and the mushrooms told me to go to the art store and buy a shit ton of art supplies so I biked to the art store do not recommend while you’re dripping demon like leave the house.

But I did that and I went to the art store and just stared at things and some way somehow I got an easel and a bunch of the expensive acrylic paints and paint brushes. And like they were staring at me the workers and I was staring at them and like why are you staring at me? It was a mess but I biked safely home. They didn’t have a bag to put the stuff in. So I put the stuff in the basket City bikes have. And I went home.

And I just set up the art supplies and was just very, I was listening to, to the mushrooms like guide me and tell me what to do. Again, that’s really you telling yourself what to do. But you don’t have like the oh, but don’t do that the fear of rejection is gone. The inhibitions like it, you’re not stopped as easily because your ego is removed, and there’s just less fear.

And I just am more in tune with my intuition. And I allowed myself to be guided. So I set that art stuff up. But then I remember getting up and going to the bathroom and looking at myself in the mirror, which people tell you not to do, but I love looking at myself in the mirror when I do mushrooms. Because I love seeing how my brain sees myself on mushrooms. I definitely feel like I look more like a dude when I do mushrooms. And my friend who was on mushrooms told me that when he was on them, too, he’s like, Charly, look like a dude. I’m like, I know.

And it’s just interesting how, how the mushrooms reinforced the gender binary of like, oh, yeah, you’re a dude. Because I’m, I’m masculine presenting, I do identify as non-binary for now my pronouns are they them for now. But I also noticed when I mushrooms that I’m more willing to accept the pronouns he had. And just in normal life, when I speak Spanish, I use male pronouns, because I like to play around with gender. And it was cool for me to learn Spanish from a different perspective. And that’s my way of healing my inner child that hated wearing dresses to speak Spanish, from the male perspective, because I feel like I’m making up for lost time and in thinking of life from the whatever perspective.

But yeah, second trip, I just went back and forth from the bathroom to the art supplies, and then the mushroom started saying, Wow, you really do dawdle a lot, you waste a lot of time. You’re intimidated by art and your creativity. And you ran away from things a lot. And I was like you’ve got you, right. So I just sat there and finally started painting.

And then out of nowhere, I got this knowing that I was communicating with my dad, who I have not seen in over 10 years, I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. And there’s a lot of guilt around not knowing that. And if you’re Latinx you’re probably familiar with some sort of father who has abandoned the family. And the mom has to like, pick up the slack. Especially in the Latinx community Father’s Day is a very heavy day for a lot of us. Father’s Day is seen as the second Mother’s Day because there’s so many dads who have abandoned their families. And I totally relate to that.

Last I heard of my dad, he was living in Guadalajara, Mexico, and then he just like, left his apartment. So he’s had a lot of mental health issues. So because of his own unhealed childhood trauma, he lost his mom when he was in his teens. And his dad did not have a lot of emotional intelligence. And there was not a lot of love and support. And I inherited that as a child that was not loved the way that I wanted, there was not a lot of affirmations and reassurance in physical touch.

There was a lot of bipolar illness going on, like I love you, but then I’ll yell at you out of nowhere for an hour and make you cry, make you feel like shit and then ask you to forgive me type stuff from my dad. I was homeschooled. And I was always made to feel like I wasn’t smart enough or intelligent enough even though like I was learning French and in like long division when I was like seven years old. I was never good enough and never smart enough. And yeah, my chest tenses up just thinking about this. But that’s why we do the healing and have to remind myself that I’m no longer in that place. And I can give my inner child what he needs now.

But in that moment, I felt like I was talking to my dad. I was like, Holy shit, this is intense. I feel like I can talk to dead people on mushrooms. And I couldn’t hear his voice but it just felt like telepathically I understood that he was there talking to me. And he was like, hey, it’s dad. I was like, Oh, hey. And we just started talking to each other in a space of closure. It was the closure that I didn’t even know that I was looking for or that I didn’t know I needed closure that no therapist could give me after years of therapy. It was the closure that the mushrooms understood from my subconscious talking to me after understanding all of my lived experiences that I had suppressed in order for me to survive and advance in life. And he apologized to me. Which again if you’re Latinx it’s just like in the movie Encanto like, that’s the ultimate fantasy is just a fucking apology from your family for fucking up.

Disney movies used to be all about oh, finding the prince, the knight in shining armor, finding your true love. And now it’s about getting the fucking family apology that we never got. And that closure. So that’s what I was getting on that trip. And my dad just apologized and he said, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for everything I did to you. I was just bitter.  I actually wanted to be an artist growing up and my family shamed me so much that the that I had to suppress that. And that ended up being anger. So I’m happy you’re, you’re an artist, and I’m sorry for criticizing you so much as a kid and for telling you that your drawings weren’t good enough and to always be better. And I’m sorry for telling you to not use all the paints, to be cautious with the paints to be careful with the paint, and not waste anything. But now I want you to grab all the paint with your hand and slap that shit on the canvas and use all of it.  And it felt orgasmic to just slap the paint on the canvas.

And I was on what my ex call un viaje lunar. I remember calling my ex FaceTiming with her. She was in Peru at the time. And just like crying. I was crying very intensely. She was probably freaking out. But she’s like, aren’t you scared? And I’m like, No, I got this. Like, I’m with my dad. And we’re having a good time and laughing. She’s like, okay. And I also remember telling my dad, we’re not going to listen to this classical music anymore, because that’s the music you want your whitewashed bougie ass loved classical music. But we’re gonna sit down here and listen to some reggae on and have a good time. And then paint. And the painting looked like shit. Literally, it was like Brown is I’ve mixed all the colors together.

But it was very healing in that moment to actually feel safe with my dad for once I got what I’d been wanting and needing which is just to feel safe with my dad and share and laughter with him and to not feel judged or scared. And in that moment, I felt like he finally had that also for the first time in his life. And we gave that to each other.

And, of course, I was crying my eyes out, but I knew what was coming because I listened to podcasts about people’s trips before like they can be very intense. But it’s good to know to be prepared like you’re you might cry a lot. Because all this shit they’ve been suppressing for decades gonna come up out of nowhere. The mushrooms don’t give you what you want, they give you what you need. And that can be a lot for people. Especially if you’re not mentally in a ready place.

If you’re struggling a lot with suicidal ideation and depression, mushrooms are not it for you probably. So that was a very intense trip the snot was coming out I remember going back to the bathroom back and forth just like rinsing my eyes out. But I just felt like I was clearing so much for my subconscious that I didn’t even know I needed to clear and yeah, mushroom trip lasted like five, five ish hours. And I just remember feeling so exhausted, but it tired but relieved, that’s the emotion that I felt just so relieved and the reassurance that it would be okay.

And also the mushrooms are hella validating as a trans person in this society that wants people to be either man or woman and identify with the gender that that was assigned to them at birth. The mushrooms told me Hey, you’re divine, you’re a boss for being trans and for being yourself, you’re divine and you’re microcosm, you’re an example of the possibilities of the universe and multi dimensionality. I was like okay, and just this understanding of past lives and past dimensions of the Universe.

And I felt like I was time traveling to 2000 years ago where in another life my parents were in love and did love each other and I’m a reflection of their love. And how I should have been, not should have but in another dimension I was a man and it was okay and now in this dimension, I popped out as non-binary just to represent like different possibilities and multi dimensionality of the universe, that in this 3d Capitalism tries to suppress but we’re slowly using our voices to start podcasts. Wink wink and connect with each other and normalize that gender is a spectrum and it’s normal to be trans.

Even though society doesn’t want us to think it’s normal, it’s normal. And normal is relative. To that I say I felt normal on psychedelics for once, I felt like, Oh, I’m understanding how things work. Now, it was wild for me to feel so normal despite having this trip where I was like having past lives and understanding my ancestral trauma, and it just felt like I got the sense of, okay, I understand how it works, there’s more, there’s more to life than what we see in front of our faces, or what the media tells us or what the capitalist machine tries to tell us. So that’s what I walked away with on that trip.

And since then, I just decided to stop being on anti-depressants, the mushrooms gave me a window into possibility of Oh, yeah, I can’t exist without anxiety, it’s going to be okay. But it’s going to take a shit ton of work. I remember moving to Mexico right away in November 2020. And trying to wean off the antidepressants. And shit hit the fan, I did not feel myself, I felt very sad, I could barely get out of bed. And that was the withdrawal symptoms. But this, this trip this time gave me the ability to, I don’t know, I just didn’t feel the withdrawal. I was okay, I was prepared mentally, this time to be off them. And this isn’t to, to make myself sound like a better person off antidepressants, that was just my choice for my body at the time to just decide to stop being on them and it worked out.

I might be on antidepressants, and I want to normalize it, there’s no shame around that. But for now, in this moment, I’m not on them. But that can change. And if you’re on them, I don’t want to stigmatize you for that. If you’re on antidepressants, or Adderall or some sort of like, ADHD medication that’s allowing you to survive in this capitalist society. That’s great. I’m not trying to tell you to get off your meds and just do mushrooms because I felt like mushrooms could be my replacement for antidepressants.

So I would I’d microdose a bunch after that’s because I felt still incomplete. Like, oh, okay, I was on antidepressants. Now I have to be on mushrooms as a replacement all the time. And that’s also dangerous. It’s not dangerous. But looking back, I realized that I didn’t need to do that, that I could take these trips and integrate with them, and not continue to be on mushrooms every day after that, which is what like Big Pharma wants you to do big pharma wants you to think that you have to take something every day forever, because they profit off that. And that works for some people again, but for me, I had this inherited capitalist idea that oh, I was taking this substance to function in society. Now I need to replace that with this plant medicine.

And that wasn’t the case, the thing with mushrooms is that you can have an amazing trip. And then never do mushrooms again, or not do them for several months after. And what matters is that you integrate the lessons after each trip, because they have something to teach you after you’re on them. So that’s why after each trip, I journal the lessons so I don’t forget them. Because it’s not like it is kind of like being drunk, but it’s kind of like lucid dreaming, like you’re awake, but you’re tapping into subconscious.

You’re tapping into your subconscious. And you do forget some things, but some things you do remember more clearly. So when I was having that like painting session with my dad, I was recording myself. And I had this sense of Oh shit, I want to share this with people. I’m such a giver. I love sharing my experiences, and create safe spaces for people to make people feel less alone. Such a giver like that. But then when I rewatched the video, I was like, Oh, this is a video of me straight up just crying for 10, 20 minutes telling my dad that I missed him and that I hear him and that I love him. And I was like this is not productive, but cool. Cool for you, Charly for trying to share this experience with others. But that’s why I can still remember these things.

I’ve also presented on mushrooms for my grad school course. I took an elective in my MBA on drug use disorder, and do you understand the opioid crisis? Because I think these mushrooms gave me a window into realizing that oh, the US does stigmatize things like psychedelics because they’re actually really powerful anti-capitalist. Because well for my personal experience, after being on mushrooms, I didn’t have to depend on Big Pharma to supply these antidepressants for me at but more importantly Big Pharma aside, they made me feel validated and seen as a trans person cuz capitalism does not want you to feel like you’re enough. Capitalism wants you to feel like you’re inadequate, like you need to lose weight, like you need to go on a diet program, like you should be straight cisgender like, make you feel guilty for not being straight, white, thin people basically a neurotypical.

But the mushrooms made me realize, Oh, I am enough. I am a badass, I am baller, I am divine for being me. And I’m a representation of other possibilities and multi dimensionality. And that’s capitalism’s worst nightmare. That in the moment I can feel that I’m enough and that I wanted to share that message with other people. And so after doing that, I definitely understand why psychedelics were criminalized in the 70s and there was an explosion of, of consciousness. Tim Leary in what people call, like, dirty hippies no these people were, were exploring multidimensionality. And it was about peace and love because that at the end of the day, that’s the point of life is to love each other. But capitalism doesn’t thrive off that.

And so Nixon saw all these young hippies doing psychedelics and was like, well, if people are discovering their inner selves and feeling like they’re enough and promoting love, then I can’t send people to Vietnam, to fight communism. And we need to like protect our corporations and the military industrial complex around the world and have military bases to just protect capitalism around the world because communism is bad. So we need to criminalize psychedelics, I believe it became a schedule one drug that and LSD which is on the same level as cocaine, and shut down research for about 50 years on psychedelics.

And just in the past decade, that research is reemerging. And it’s seen as a treatment for addiction for substance use disorder. It’s still heavily regulated and controlled. But I’m excited that things are finally looking up, there’s just so much reversal that happens that I’m excited. I don’t want to talk about how much we’ve missed out on in the past 50 years and possibilities. I’m just excited that I’m in this dimension, and that there’s this reawakening and destigmatization of psychedelics for the potential for people to explore themselves. And do that inner work that personally I don’t feel as possible on marijuana, or alcohol, or caffeine.

So that that’s a history. Psychedelics 101 and how capitalism hates them. So that’s why I believe mushrooms are anti-capitalist, because they make us feel like we’re enough and feel like we can connect with each other, and to help each other at the end of the day.

So I gave that trigger warning for suicide mentioned, because on my next trip, this is the part that gets heavy, just FYI, folks. So I moved to Peru for three months in the summer of 2021. Because I fell madly in love with a Peruvian woman that I’d met on Tinder, we spent a week together and did long distance for four months. And I went to Peru to be with her. But then it didn’t work out after three months. And then I spent a month in Colombia to just like grieve after the breakup, because I realized that it was not going to work out. I definitely still love her. I loved her so much.

But I realized that love isn’t enough, you have to have your goals aligned and in your life choices, somewhat aligned. And that breakup was very hard for me because I was madly in love. Probably the most in love I’d ever been since college. And that was hard. And I’d started seeing my therapist, who I love who is Colombian via zoom. Who is down with the plant medicine. Now I can’t see myself seeing a therapist who’s not down with the plant medicine, who doesn’t shame me for being on them, which is why I talk about them. Now I’m like, this is important to talk about because people still feel stigmatized. So I’m down with the plant medicine, it’s nice to have a therapist who’s down with them, who I can say things like, Oh, I had a heavy trip, or I’m going through shit. And she won’t judge me for it. And she’ll help me integrate and process the trips with me.

So I remember moving back to Mexico after this breakup, and still feeling depressed and super sad. Even though I was in Playa Del Carmen. At the time, it was August and I was like, Well, time to go back to the beach and just live my best life and return to myself. Because that’s what it feels like when you go through a breakup. But I was still not in a mentally good place at all. And I’d rented this dingy Airbnb that didn’t have air conditioning. It was dark. It was outside of the center. And I think it was just a reflection of how shitty I felt about myself was renting an Airbnb that was just like, dark and cheap and outside of the city center away from everything, is I just felt like crap about myself.

And then I remember thinking, Okay, well now I need to do mushrooms so that I can be cured of my depression and get over this breakup in six hours, because I listened to podcast episodes of people talk about how they took mushrooms to get over their divorce and heartbreak. And it was a magical transformation for them yadda yadda. And that was dangerous because I was depending on mushrooms for a certain outcome, and giving the mushrooms a purpose and telling them what I wanted.

So I, I took a lot of mushrooms, with the hope of getting over my breakup. But the mushrooms again, they give you what you need, not what you want. So I had a very intense trip, I was alone, expecting to just get that validation again, and for the mushrooms to tell me what a badass I was as a trans person, that would be okay, and give me my life plan for next steps for moving forward.

But I was not in the right mental state for what was to come. So the mushrooms told me that I should kill myself that I’m never going to find love that I always escape people who love me that I should get back together with my ex, that my family doesn’t love me. There’s something wrong with me. And all of just like the ego, stuff came up that I had suppressed. All of basically my worst fears of myself talking to myself came up. And I just felt so shitty. And I was like, wow, these mushrooms are kicking my ass.

But I was able to separate myself from that, okay, because I’ve done mushrooms before and understand how they work. And I was like, oh, okay, I’m just not writing them in the right mental state. The mushrooms are telling me to kill myself. But this is going to pass. And so I just started journaling. And then I started dancing to, to the song Tu Con El, which is a song that I love dancing to with my ex. And I felt like in that moment, I was just trying to get the closure of saying bye to my ex and I felt very connected with her but also very sad, which is very sad moments, but I knew that it was going to pass but that I probably should not go on such heavy doses for a while.

And then I called one of my doctor friends right away. And I told him like I just had a really bad trip. It was like 11pm And he’s like, Yeah, you should not do mushrooms alone for now. And I was like you right you right. And then I texted my therapist and told her I’d really bad trip. And she just reassured me and said, Okay, we’re gonna talk about this. Just remember that the message that the mushrooms give you should be symbolic. Don’t take them literally. And that really helped me and my perception of my trip because I was freaking out. I had attached so much meaning to what the mushrooms were telling me in the moment that I was like, should I kill myself? What’s the point in life. But then she asked me to draw a mandala, just a circle and draw everything that I was seeing in that trip. And that was a really helpful exercise.

And then I spoke with her about my experience. She was like, Okay, what do you think this means? And I told her that I had this vision of growing up in my little house in Washington State and feeling like, we pretended that everything was fine. And it wasn’t we were undocumented. And I just remember this specific recollection of us always going for walks around the block to like, get out of the house and pretend things were fine. Even though they weren’t, and we were always fighting and it was tumultuous. And I was homeschooled. And I was just like in the house all day.

And then I realized that COVID was hella triggering for me. Because COVID during lockdown people were home all of a sudden. And people were like oh this is shitty being at home all the time. And I was like oh this is like my childhood literally being shut inside with people I don’t like. Only I was with myself and I realized I needed to do a lot of healing work because lockdown put my body in that fight or flight mode of like oh shit being locked inside is bad, you’re going to get yelled at. And you’re going to get hurt emotionally. Bad time.

And I’m sure others can relate to this but it was really helpful to be with a therapist who helped me process everything. She’s like, yeah, yeah, you don’t, don’t kill yourself. But there’s just parts of yourself that are ready to die. Symbolic. And that really helped me. And she’s like, yeah, don’t do trips for another three months. And my ass was like, can I microdose though? And she’s like, sure, whatever but don’t do heavy trips.

And so I didn’t since then until, uh, until this April. I did some chocolate mushrooms, and again, I was prepared for a very intense trip. It happened. I was crying a lot. My knees had also gone out. I’d also gone through another breakup. Um, so processing that, but I didn’t go in with the intention of healing from that breakup.

I knew better than that, but I realized that there was still a lot of healing and crying that I needed to do to just get out of my system. Years of trauma. Locked inside of my body and the mushrooms again helped me just cry. Release that. After a year and a half of not talking to my mom, after coming down off the mushrooms, I decided since I was bedridden and my knees went out and I was like, well, better call my mom to see like, what’s up.

Because last I’d spoken to her, I told her, don’t talk to me until you and your asshole boyfriend are ready to stop treating me like shit . And I called and found out that she’d been watching everything I’d been doing on my Facebook page, even though we were no longer Facebook friends. And I just felt like shit because I was like, how can you just watch everything I’m doing?

And she was like, I’m your mom. I just want you to be okay. And I was like, I’ve gone through so much shit, including now, like my knees are out. I’m not okay. It’d be nice for you to just reach out and ask me how I’m doing instead of just watching my life unfold, the good and the bad, and, and not reaching out at all.

So lots more crying and I just realized that damn, coming to Mexico, I, I had a lot of healing to do on a conscious level. I went to Mexico to get my master’s online. I am a dual citizen. I just wanted to go live by the beach and, and work remotely. But on the subconscious level, I realized that I’ve had this subconscious sense of, let me go back to Mexico so I can heal my family’s shit and my family will magically reunite and be happy again in Mexico.

But that was not the case. So I had a lot of crying and purging emotionally to do as I was closing that chapter of living in Mexico recently. Uh, and I left in May of this year. And then last night I had a great mushroom trip. I was bracing myself for the worst, butI realized in this trip that I was seeking more of that validation.

My Virgo ass is like, all right, how am I doing universe? What’s good? And mushrooms are like, you’re doing great, kiddo. You’re doing great. I took a nice salt bath. I turned down the lights, made sure I was nice and comfortable. Had my lavender since I had my whole setup, put my face mask on my eyes because I love closing my eyes and seeing the visuals.

I did some art at first, but then I just become so highly sensitive that I just wanna lay in bed and go on the trip and close my eyes and process everything. So I was surprised at how, how smooth sailing this mushroom trip was because I realized that offline, and offline meaning not on mushrooms. I’ve done so much work consistently seeing my therapist every two weeks doing gratitude journaling.

When I wake up, she told me to write five things I’m grateful for because that’s when your subconscious is most susceptible to reprogramming. And before bed, I write five things that I’m grateful for and I realized that even just a year, six months ago, I was a very angry person. Even though I love to dance and party and I have a big smile, deep down, I was still an angry person, but the gratitude journaling and the work thanks to the psychedelics, the mushroom.

But also the gratitude journaling, the consistent online and offline work that I’m doing allowed me to have just a nice trip, and my Virgo ass still felt like, all right, what am I gonna do now? And the mushrooms were like, you don’t need to do anything. Just enjoy the ride. So I was having some lovely visuals floating.

I felt like my brain was melting, but I think after previous experience with psychedelics, I look forward to, to this, this separation of my ego. And I’m just so much more willing to feel other sensations to hear music and see visuals go with the music, uh, and feel sensations that are so unfamiliar, yet familiar at the same.

And to just feel like I’m connecting on a spiritual level with all the people that I love and my chosen family. And this time the mushroom said, you’ve done so much healing in Mexico, but there was that subconscious desire for you to go to Mexico and heal your family. Uh, and this trip made me realize that last night that that’s why I felt so sad.

And I was mourning and crying and my knees went out when I left Mexico because I felt like I had failed my family. And that’s not the case. But I’m such a giver and a healer that my subconscious was like yeah, go to Mexico and have the time of your life, but also heal your ancestral trauma, and that’s a lot to put on yourself.

But during this trip, I remember still talking to my inner child, like five year old Charly, and asking, okay, five year old Charly, what’s good things are popping right now? I’m happy in DC. What do you need? Uh, what can you give me? What can I give you? Let’s do this. And five year old Charly was like, keep playing with life, keep being creative.

And I was like, you’re right. That’s, that’s the goal of life. I’m 31 and I’m still learning how to play and enjoy life. And then I said, okay, five year old Charly, things are gonna be great. I know they suck right now, but you can wear boys’ clothes and you can be a boy. So when I do psychedelics there’s that whole gender binary thing.

I refer to myself as he him, and play with the they them, but the he, him just flows out easier uh, and I said, you’re gonna have such an amazing life once you get out. I know you’re worried, you’re undocumented, and you’re thinking, uh, why are we in random Moses Lake Washington when our entire family’s in Mexico?

This doesn’t make sense, but you’re gonna get the fuck out. You’re not only will you get your citizenship, you’re gonna go to an amazing college. And meet your chosen family gonna come out of the closet and by the time you’re 31, you’ll have traveled to 30 different countries by yourself. Couch surfing, staying with amazing people all over the world who can’t wait to host you and learn from you, and show you the world you’re gonna couch, surf and travel alone to Victoria Falls to Africa, and, and swim at the edge of Devil’s Pool.

After being laid off when you’re depressed and just go to Africa and you’re gonna swim at the edge of Victoria Falls and have a magical little experience, almost transcendental experience, and you’re gonna be on the Zambia side and look over on the Zimbabwe side and just feel a connection to the earth and the universe and see the mist, and almost hear the sirens.

And you’re gonna feel like those Excel spreadsheets don’t matter. And that the point of life is to see and explore the world and travel, but you’re also gonna realize that travel is a form of escapism. Traveling won’t cure you, it won’t heal you. You can have a bucket list and see all these amazing places all over the world, but you’re gonna go on psychedelics and the inner transformation is gonna happen for you.

You don’t have to physically go anywhere to have trips, and that’s the beauty of, of psychedelics. You don’t have to go anywhere to do the work.

And yes, you’re still a badass for being trans. Like you’re, you’re doing great, kiddo. That was the affirmation that I kept hearing from myself that the mushrooms helped me have. You’re doing great, kiddo. It was a beautiful experience and, and yeah, I just felt like, I was flipped over, upside down, felt sensations.

I felt connection to like the Underworlds and a lot of inner child stuff. I remember watching the movie Hercules as a kid, and while I was on my trip I was like, oh yeah, I definitely connected more with Hercules. I wanted to be him. Meg was sensual and kind of like seductive and hot, but she was too skinny for me and also, the three fates, I think they were like the three old sisters that work for Hades. They’re not sisters. They’re actually a thruple. Disney just wanted to hide that and that underworld full of dead people floating around that’s gonna be full of manatees.

And I was just going with it. I was like, yeah, underworld of manatees. Fuck yeah, cuz I love manatees so much. They’re one of my favorite animals. Those and zebras and unicorns and seahorses. So, yeah, the mushrooms just told me to enjoy life, and it was just so nice to not have to suffer because I feel like, especially as somebody with CP PTSD, as a highly sensitive person, child of immigrants, doing things alone, leveling up or so used to suffering, but this trip reminded me that I don’t have to suffer, that I can just enjoy things.

Enjoy life and that I’m here for the ride and I leave you with that reminder. The point of life is to enjoy it and to have fun, and that’s the anti-capitalist reminder that mushrooms are giving me that I wanna remind you of. It’s important to build wealth and make money so that we can survive in this capitalist society, but the point is also to have fun and enjoy.

But to also not depend on substances or, or things to, to heal ourselves. The real healing is consistent, starts with gratitude, journaling, helping others. Seeking out therapy offline, and then the mushrooms are a compliment when used carefully in appropriate settings. So I hope this podcast has given you a, a great window into how mushrooms have helped me on my journey of life, on my wealth building journey, on my journey of just feeling connected and up healing my shit, and a feeling like a badass, non-binary trans person.

Who’s able to hop on podcasts and talk vulnerably about these experiences because you’re not alone. And I love I, I’m down with the plant medicine and I feel like that’s a way that clients come up to me afterward, come up to me online and say, I actually loved working with you, and I hired you because you’re a money coach who doesn’t stigmatize plant medicine.

And I know that you won’t judge me because you’re also down with that. So I am down with the plant meds. They’re great , and this was such a fun podcast. . Um, if you’re interested in learning more about psychedelics, I did do a presentation that I recorded that’s up on YouTube. It’s up on my Instagram, and I’ll put the link in the show notes to talk more about the history of mushrooms in Meso America.

My grad school presentation where I talk about my personal experience with mushrooms, oh yes, I did that during my MBA. That’s just how I roll. I don’t give a fuck. We’re here on the planet temporarily. Can’t be scared anymore and I just love sharing the message of magic mushrooms.

And so far, those are the only psychedelics that I’ve done. I haven’t done LSD any others, but I’d love to try ayahuasca. I’m actually having my friend, honey, join the podcast soon to talk about her ayahuasca experience and all of that, so I’m super excited. In other news, I’m really excited to be hosting my next brokerage account investing masterclass.

That’s on July 13th. Come join the party, sign up at the link in my bio. And if you’re interested in one-on-one money coaching, I have a six month program for you. So come join the Money Party. I’m excited to meet you and love and blessing, so grateful for you for listening. Feel free to share, review this podcast with your loved ones.

All right, have a great day.