Meet Megan Morgan | Writer, Artist & Yoga Teacher

We had the good fortune of connecting with Megan Morgan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Megan, the decisions we make often shape our story in profound ways. What was one of the most difficult decisions you’ve had to make?
The answer to this question has a few branches. The truth is, I have had three experiences with death, and I had to make the conscious decision to live all over again each time. I had to choose my life, my path and my priorities. But life just wasn’t the same after and I’ve had to continue to make difficult decisions in order to live the life I know that I’m meant to. Not just for me, but for my family, my community and what I want the legacy of my life to be. The most difficult decision came about when I decided to write my book in 2019 called The End of Me, that details each of these experiences and what happened to me before, during and after each experience. I was terrified that I would be perceived a certain way or that I was somehow unstable, or lying about something that had so profoundly impacted me. The next most difficult thing was to then embark upon speaking about it openly, to friends, family, in public, and eventually at events and through speaking opportunities and through my podcast, MYA ~ My Yoga Audio. It’s still the most difficult decision that I think about a lot. You simply don’t get to have three extra chances at life and not have anything to show from it, share from it, grow from it. I’m almost always hyper aware of this reality and when I forget, something always happens to jolt me back into remembering it and whether or not I’m on the right path at that time.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a writer or artist of some kind. I was different both in my appearance and my approach to life compared to my family, friends and community. My initial foray into the formal arts was an art and photography class in high school which I loved. Then going to journalism school fueled my love for writing, but it still wasn’t right. It wasn’t until I’d had three life-changing experiences that I finally honored my dream to go back to school to get my art degree and MFA that I finally felt like I was getting somewhere. My first artistic love is photography and I adore the sense of agency using a camera gives me and the subjects of my photographs too. It wasn’t easy in the sense that I had a young family and was working full time and going to school full time to try and make ends meet – but the joy an artistic career brought me was worth it. It also encouraged my children to embrace their creativity, they are really incredible in their own ways and I’ve always encouraged them to follow an artistic path in some way. It is individually and collectively healing for us to be able to be creative. The hardest thing about getting to where I am today was being brave enough to say this is what I wanted and needed, and pulling out all the stops to get there. Yoga helped me tremendously along my journey to really understand being in my body and processing my emotions – and this in-turn fueled my artistic practice. I am lucky to have a partner who supported me following my dreams. A lot of sacrifices were made along the way, but in this moment, I can honestly say, I’m finally embracing who I’m really supposed to be and it took a really long time and some difficult lessons to get here.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love art, and a visit to the California African American Museum https://caamuseum.org/
would be first on my list! They’re about to re-open and have two new exhibitions opening on May 22 featuring artist Paula Wilson and on May 26 featuring artist Simone Leigh which is also in collaboration with LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

Pay a visit to LACMA https://www.lacma.org/ where starting this month and through October they have jazz musicians performing live every Friday night – and a lot of great permanent and traveling exhibitions, including a current one on artist Ed Ruscha.

While we’re on a museum tour, I’d also have to recommend the Hammer Museum, which just hosted its 19th annual Museum Gala with some of Hollywood’s greatest artists, actors, producers and directors like Ava Duvernay, Betye Saar, and Jodie Foster: https://wwd.com/pop-culture/celebrity-news/gallery/hammer-museum-gala-red-carpet-arrivals-photos-1236353728/

There’s also a current show on at Hammer featuring the work of Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi that’s larger than life and a must-see:
https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2024/hammer-projects-thenjiwe-niki-nkosi

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would love to dedicate a shout out to the founders of Clutch, a woman-owned business whose founders have supported me as a person and encouraged me to share my story for over six years. We first met at a Creative Mornings event I was speaking at in 2019 and they recently gave me an incredible opportunity to bring my story more into the spotlight in 2023 as part of the BOLD Speaker Series. BOLD is a unique speaker series designed by women. Each event features different topics to make up the content of that year’s BOLD series. Each woman chosen discusses different equality-focused topics, taking us through women’s personal stories of struggle and hope. These BOLD stories empower and inspire us all. For 2023, Jill Osur represented the letter B which stood for Breaking Beyond, me, Megan Morgan, represented the O for Obituary, Michele Foss represented the letter L for Legacy and Meghan Philips stood up for D and Dungeness crab! These in-person, community attended events are powerful, joyful, uplifting and often, very emotional – but in a good way. Rachel Zillner and Anne Descalzo created this series because they want to see more equality in the workplace, home life and everyday interactions between people. They believe that by creating a platform for women to be vulnerable with one another, our community will strengthen and real change can begin. BOLD intentionally includes at least 50% of their chosen speakers will be women of color.

Learn more about the BOLD Speaker Series at: https://connectwithclutch.com/bold/

Clutch is also an award-winning certified women-owned business and sees their clients’ challenges as opportunities to be the solution. Their carefully curated employee workforce sets them apart as they support clients across public and private sectors. Their values-based approach to doing business means they match their clients to the resources they dream about with a team empowered to do great work. From marketing and events management, to training and development, business management and program management, they really can do it all. The CLUTCH team is also the recipient of numerous awards – everything from Entrepreneur of the Year to Women Who Mean Business and Workplace Wellness Awards – they are committed to having a human-centered and wellness-based approach to life and business and are making waves across industry, community, our relationships with one another and ultimately, building incredible community.

You can learn more about Anne and Rachel and their team here: https://connectwithclutch.com/about/meet-the-team/

Website: https://myyogaaudio.com

Instagram: @luvinthislife and @my.yoga.audio

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganriamorgan/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@myyogaaudio

Image Credits
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