Hi, I’m Megan Shaina Bakva.
I’m a depth-oriented somatic therapist, breath + sound facilitator, writer, & dog mom in Los Angeles, CA
I don’t come from a lineage of healers or mystics (not that I know of), but from immigrants – people forced to flee their ancestral land and, as a result, their feeling bodies.
As a child with big questions and bigger feelings, my inner world outsized the containers and mirrors available to me. My depth, sensitivity, creativity – unexpressed – went dormant; my aliveness and interiority slowly sacrificed at the altar of belonging.
And so, a little girl who was a pleasure to have in class became a woman who “thrived” in fast paced environments as a marketing manager. I grew older and the stage changed, but the script remained: be good, be small, be easy – hold it all in and someone will someday hold you.
I moved through life with urgency and vigilance, braced and breathless as I shifted into the shapes each relationship or job asked of me. I found momentary relief by numbing my body and indulging in my over-active mind: intellectualization, control strategies, and fantasies of rescue.
But no one came and eventually the anesthetic wore off…
Pain demands to be felt
It’s a threshold of initiation – the metamorphic process present in all of nature. But, like many of us, I grew up in a culture where pain is feared, cauterized, and pathologized and rites of passage have been lost or sterilized. Without stewardship across that threshold, I was frozen in time – uninitiated into selfhood.
One day, I stumbled across the threshold myself when I walked into a yoga studio in LA.
The practice of inhabiting myself on my yoga mat, and staying with discomfort both physical and mental, created space for what had been frozen to begin to thaw. I deepened into Yoga: asana first then pranayama and philosophy. Soon, I was receiving acupuncture, drinking herbs, studying transpersonal psychology, reading mythopoetic works, connecting with my inner child, and sitting across from depth-oriented therapists.
I made contact with my body. I gained a lot of insight. I saw flickers of connection to something bigger than myself – the divine. Yet, I continued to struggle in my relationships and my career. The chasm between mind and body remained. I was still trying to think my way through pain, still using the only map I'd ever known.
The body is a map
After two years with “start somatic therapy” penciled in my planner, I found myself with the right practitioner. The container was vast enough, the witness attuned enough, the cosmology deep enough to hold me. Through her, I became a compassionate witness to myself and learned the map of my body.
I was held in a way that taught me to not only hold, but belong to myself.
What was once vigilant monitoring became a steady, kind presence and what was once braced became fluid. I found that it wasn’t only grief, sorrow, and rage that I’d numbed along the way, but also joy, passion, and pleasure. Through expression and embodiment, decades of frozen material moved through me.
Pain precedes purpose
Initiations didn’t stop there: grief, uncertainty, injustice continue to surface. Much of what I offer in my work now is the medicine I return with, time and time again, when pain cracks me open.
I believe each of our souls calls us across the threshold – be it through a yoga class, falling in love, a layoff – to initiate our metamorphosis and soul’s evolution.
My work bridges the body, psyche, and soul – all in devotion to transformation for the individual and the collective. I don’t do nervous-system level work to follow a trend or because a “regulated” nervous system is a worthy goal (it’s sometimes just another way of being good or small). I do this work out of devotion to my soul’s journey, the awakening of my body, and an outpouring of what was dammed too long.
I am not who I am because I am a somatic therapist. I am a somatic therapist because of who I am.
Pain is a portal. Your body is a map.
Through the soma, we access what has kept us suspended, braced, numbed, reactive, controlled and bring medicine to the original wound.
Education & specialized training:
Master of Social Work: University of Southern California
Bachelor of Arts, Psychology: University of California, Santa Barbara
SP for the Treatment of Trauma, Level 1:
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy InstituteEMDR in Clinical Practice: EMDR Consulting
Somatic Parts Work, Level 2: Embody Lab
Sound Meditation Facilitation: The Sound Ceremony
Registered Yoga Teacher, 200 Hours: Yoga Alliance
Kids’ Yoga, 30 Hours: Zooga Yoga
Yoga Nidra Meditation, 60 Hours: Practices of Self Love
Reiki Practitioner, 2nd Degree: Love Yoga Space
On the threshold?
I offer a free mini-session to connect, ask questions, and experience my offerings. If it feels aligned, we’ll go over next steps and book your first session.
