42: Missy McMurray – Leaving Mormonism, Grief, and Psychedelic Healing

Gabe sits down with licensed Oregon psilocybin facilitator Missy McMurray to explore her journey from devoted Mormonism to meditation, psychedelic healing, and what she calls “evolutionary midwifery.” Together they ask what it means to support transformation when an old identity is dying but a new one has not yet emerged.

Missy reflects on growing up in a loving family as the middle of eleven children in Salt Lake City, trying to reform Mormonism from within, and eventually accepting the need to be misunderstood. She and Gabe examine the church’s complicated relationship with happiness, grief, anger, gender, agency, and the body—while making room for both the beauty and the harm found within religious traditions.

They also explore how meditation and psychedelics can complement each other, why profound experiences still require integration, and how psilocybin can amplify what is already present. Missy explains Oregon’s legal facilitation process, including screening, preparation, the medicine journey, integration, dose selection, and microdosing classes.

From there they branch into:

• Anger as a sacred source of protection, vitality, and clarity rather than something to eliminate.

• The grief that can accompany leaving inherited identities and discovering what lies beneath them.

• Why spiritual practice should help us inhabit ordinary life rather than escape it.

• The fear of feeling pain, joy, and other experiences that may expand our emotional capacity.

• Reclaiming ritual, community, embodiment, and personal revelation after religious transition.

They close by considering how people can retain what they love about Mormonism without remaining confined by it, build community beyond familiar institutions, and learn to trust their own heartbeat while staying open to the unknown.

Missy’s website:

https://www.missymcmurray.com

Contact Missy:

info@missymcmurray.com

Please rate, share, and get in touch at mysticsandmuons@gmail.com!

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:34 Becoming an “Evolutionary Midwife”

06:48 Mormon Upbringing and Chronic Pain

10:44 Happiness, Suffering, and Religious Dissonance

15:04 Patriarchy, Anger, and Grief

23:09 Anger as Sacred Life Force

28:50 Self-Abandonment and Emotional Containers

31:13 Trying to Reform Mormonism

34:03 Agency, Lucifer, Heaven, and Hell

43:03 Identity Death and Family Love

49:34 From Meditation to Psychedelics

56:30 Integration Instead of Spiritual Escape

59:40 Fear, Feeling, and Emotional Capacity

1:06:53 Oregon’s Legal Psilocybin Process

1:14:11 What a Medicine Journey Looks Like

1:19:41 Dosing and Microdosing

1:22:32 Religion, Atheism, and Reclamation

1:36:00 Trusting Yourself Beyond Mormonism

1:41:10 Community and the Power of Not Knowing

1:44:27 Closing