I struggled to feel like I could be a good mom and businesswoman. My ayahuasca trip changed everything.
Lindsay Roselle transformed her view on motherhood after an ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon.
Before the retreat, she believed motherhood required suffering and sacrifice of her career.
After the retreat, she continued microdosing and updated her work routine to include her kids more.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lindsay Roselle, a 42-year-old entrepreneur and mom from Colorado who attended an ayahuasca retreat and started microdosing psilocybin. It's been edited for length and clarity. There's no medical consensus about whether these plant medicines have benefits, and these drugs can come with risks.
In 2019, I was preparing for my second baby, and I remember having a conversation with a group of women. I said having one baby was OK because I could take them around with me, but having two kids meant I had two options: being a stay-at-home mom or getting a full-time nanny, so I could keep working.
We all laughed it off, but five years later, I recall that moment, and it hurts. I truly felt those were my only options. I had a deeply rooted, subconscious belief that motherhood meant suffering and sacrifice.
Then in 2022, I was flying to a remote part of the Amazon for a three-day ayahuasca retreat, where I ingested a plant-based psychedelic used for medicinal, spiritual, and ceremonial purposes.
When I returned, my home life and ideas about motherhood completely changed.
My mom contributed to my negative idea of motherhood
Giving up my entrepreneurial career was never an option for me. In 2019, I was my family's breadwinner, running two brick-and-mortar businesses while my partner worked from home. We hired a nanny to care for our newborn and 2-year-old. I thought it was great because I could work like I did before we had kids.
I never even considered what impact that decision would have on my kids.
My youngest son would stay awake at night until he was almost two years old because he knew that was the only time he'd have my undivided attention.
I was repeating the behavior that was modeled for me. My mom worked from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day and was disconnected from my sister and me. She did what was expected of her from her Catholic upbringing by marrying young, having kids, and working hard, but I never felt like she loved motherhood. This contributed to my deep-rooted beliefs about it.
The pandemic shut down my businesses, and I lost my direction until I joined a mastermind
When the pandemic hit, my businesses closed, but I covered the bills by doing online consulting. I spent the rest of the year cocooned at home with my kids in full crisis mode.
In 2021, a friend recommended a mastermind for successful women feeling stuck and wanting to expand their creativity. This mastermind was a yearlong program consisting of three plant medicine experiences and a self-selected creative project.
I was afraid of what might come up under an altered state of consciousness and worried about leaving my kids, but after speaking on the phone and building trust with the leaders, I felt it was the right choice.
The mastermind, a multi-five-figure investment that my consulting work allowed me to pay for, started in 2022 with nine other women. Each month, we had a three-hour virtual 1:1 with the leaders to go over creative projects and prepare for the plant medicine experiences. The first one would be the biggest: a three-day ayahuasca ceremony held during a two-week trip to the Amazon.
I flew to the Amazon for the ayahuasca ceremony
My kids stayed home with their dad, and I took a flight to Peru, a connecting flight to Iquitos, and a boat several hours into the Amazon. It was uncomfortable to be in such a wild, vast landscape, but I felt safe and exhilarated.
In the case of an emergency, we were told the village elder could boat downriver to get a signal at another village. For the next three nights, shamans native to the region led us through three ayahuasca experiences.
On the first night, we sipped our ayahuasca tea in a pitch-black room, listening to the sounds of the Amazon and the shamans saying blessings. As I slowly fell into the experience, I felt a dark energy that I now believe to be that of my late grandmother. It forced me to confront my belief that motherhood means suffering and sacrifice.
Though the psychedelic experience felt existentially threatening at the moment, I needed it to rid myself of that belief.
I took a lighter dose on the second night and felt as though a silhouette of my mother was greeting me, sitting in the window of a castle. I felt this indescribable forgiveness toward her and released the resentment I'd built toward her for not being present or affectionate.
On the third night, I had released darkness from within me. We spent the next week and a half exploring the Sacred Valley, reflecting on our experience, and discussing how to integrate it into our lives.
I integrated my learnings by approaching work in a new way
When I returned home, I reflected on what I wanted and decided to continue working from home to spend more time with my kids.
My kids have a part-time nanny, but I want to be home-based to see them grow up and to comfort, hug, and kiss them. That's not to say my kids get all of me, either. They have to respect my boundaries. I want them to see their mom working.
I attended two more plant-medicine retreats and now microdose psilocybin regularly, it has helped me immensely with my ADHD and general well-being.
I have a newfound reverence for mothers and motherhood
I used to have rigid ideas of what it meant to be a successful mother, but now I feel the deepest respect for each mother, knowing they're doing their best to fight for their kids' survival.
I've been able to give that same grace to myself, and it feels liberating to finally not let work define my identity, success, and worth. I want to let the world know I'm a businesswoman and a mother, and my success is the journey of navigating a harmonious relationship between the two.
If you have a unique experience balancing parenthood with your high-earning career and would like to share your story, email Tess Martinelli at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.
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