Who am I?
My name is Carly Tway.
I am the founder of Merkababe Designs, a community and gathering space in Laguna Beach that began as a spiritual retail store and, from 2019 to 2026, evolved into something much larger: a place where I observed, facilitated, and studied transformation in real time.
Over the last decade, I have worked with hundreds of women navigating periods of transition. Career changes. Relationship endings. Identity shifts. Moments when the life that once made sense no longer fits, and a new version of self has not yet fully emerged.
These moments are what anthropologists call thresholds. Psychologists describe them as periods of identity restructuring. Most people simply experience them as confusion, uncertainty, or dissatisfaction.
My work exists at that intersection.
I help women navigate change consciously rather than reactively.
Not because transformation is rare, but because it is inevitable.
The question is never whether your life will change.
The question is whether you will participate in that change intentionally or be shaped by it unconsciously.
My Path
My professional path has been nonlinear, which is precisely what led me here.
At eighteen, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in professional dance. Like many people pursuing a dream, I believed hard work alone would be enough. When that chapter ended, the loss was not simply professional. It required a complete reorganization of identity.
Who was I if I was no longer becoming the person I thought I would be?
That question became the beginning of a much larger inquiry.
I eventually left Los Angeles and built Merkababe Designs from the ground up. The first storefront failed. The second received an eviction notice within days of opening. The current version exists because of repeated cycles of collapse, recalibration, and reconstruction.
What I learned through those experiences was simple:
Most people are never taught how to navigate transformation.
We are taught how to pursue goals.
We are taught how to perform success.
We are rarely taught how to rebuild ourselves when the structure we depended on no longer holds.
The Work
Today, my work centers on identity transition.
I study how people separate from outdated versions of themselves, move through uncertainty, and reintegrate into a life that reflects greater alignment.
My approach draws from philosophy, psychology, developmental theory, somatic practice, and contemplative traditions.
I am currently pursuing a degree in Philosophy with a focus on identity, meaning, and human development. Alongside my academic work, I hold certifications in Somatic Trauma Therapy, Meditation, Breathwork, Sound Healing, Reiki, Women's Facilitation, and related disciplines.
These modalities inform my work, but they do not define it.
The foundation of my approach is understanding how people change.
Not cosmetically.
Not performatively.
Structurally.
What I Believe
I do not believe people are broken.
I believe most people are attempting to navigate transitions without a framework.
When identity begins to shift, confusion is often interpreted as failure.
In reality, it is frequently evidence that an old structure is dissolving before a new one has fully formed.
My role is not to tell you who to become.
My role is to help you understand where you are in the process, identify what remains true, and build the structure necessary to move forward with clarity.
The goal is not self-improvement.
The goal is self-authorship.
Not becoming someone else.
Becoming more consciously yourself.
