Talking Slow with Tahnee

Interview by Jessica Humphries

Tahnee McCrossin is Byron Shire based yin yoga teacher, co-owner of SuperFeast and muma bear. We chat about what she’s up to, and how true health and well-being means staying slow.

Tell us a little about Tahnee and what a typical day looks like for you

This interview comes at a time of huge shifts for me, as I have just last week resigned as General Manager of our company, SuperFeast, to move into a more creative/content creation role and to spend more time with our daughter, Aiya (3.5).

I have basically been working full-time since she was born and during COVID I realised I wanted to be with her more, to support her in her next stage of growth and to spend as much time with her as I can before she starts school. So with all the change, there is no normal right now, as we are training one of our managers into my role. But I'll do my best to give you a sense of an average day!

I normally wake up either early (around 5 am) and do my practice (usually asana, meditation and pranayama, though sometimes qi gong and sometimes weird stuff with myofascial release balls) or I sleep! Depends on my daughter's sleep patterns, and on life. I discovered the hard way that I need about 8 hours. I used to be able to push it, but now, I just have to have it. I've also learned not to compromise sleep in the face of rigidity with my practice. I try and be a good lil Taoist and go with the flow, I am lucky that I can generally sneak Yoga in at other times if I miss the morning. Then, either my daughter wakes me up or interrupts my practice, and from that moment I am in mummy mode.

Mason usually makes us a tonic herb elixir (usually cacao, though we are about to do a month off stimulants, so it will likely become wattleseed and dandelion with SuperFeast herbs) before he leaves to do his practices, and then Aiya and I will eat breakfast. In iso, it's been homemade seeded sourdough with "warm" (toddler speak for soft-boiled) eggs from our chickens and some seasonal fruit or avocado, and once a week we have homemade blueberry pancakes. I will then spend the day working, so that's the daycare/bush school marathon, or I have the day with Aiya. If I am home that will involve lots of gardening, mud pies, clay, painting and drawing, trips to the beach or river or a bike ride, as well as my favourite part of the day, QUIET TIME when Aiya spends an hour alone in her room. Ha. I try and use that time wisely, either to practice or lounge and read. Mum life is exhausting sometimes!

I usually have an arvo elixir (at the moment I am loving schizandra), and then we'll eat dinner pretty early, usually around 5. Mason does the evening session with Aiya, bath and bed, so if I woke late I will do an evening practice (usually Yin Yoga and chakra meditation or Yoga Nidra) and then we might watch some Seinfeld or something silly and read before bed. Every now and then I work late to catch up on stuff I've missed, as I am currently juggling full-time responsibilities with only two days of childcare. I am so looking forward to officially moving into a part-time role, I can tell you! 

What is your general philosophy on life, health and well-being? 

I believe in health sovereignty and the body as the portal to wisdom. This means that I try and take responsibility for my health and the health of my family and community, and I try and let my body lead with its rhythms as much as possible. My work as a yoga teacher (I run teacher trainings and usually teach once a week at Creature Yoga) is to connect people to their body of intelligence via movement, breath, touch, and most importantly, stillness. We have everything inside of us that we need, but our conditioning tells us otherwise.

I love yoga because it has helped me peel away so many layers of self that were not in service to my health and happiness. My experience over the last 34 years has been that rigidity and rules are pointless - they create disconnect and separation where we need connection, communication and adaptability. Health for me comes through when I am connected to the flow of life, the rhythms of nature and the seasons of my life. Trying to be the person I was at 20 is pointless because she and I have such different ways of being in the world, we cannot possibly be nourished in the same ways. So I try and listen for the winds of change, and adapt to them as best I can. I am not so great at this, but I am getting better. I appreciate the Vedic and Taoist worldviews as they seem to align with what I have found to be true through my living; they are practical, replicable models for a healthy life, and they resonate with me deeply.

I feel really grateful to have had the resources to follow the paths I have chosen - it's something I try not to take that for granted. I often think about how to give back as I feel that there is a lot of unacknowledged privilege in the health and wellness space that can prove a barrier to people trying to educate themselves and enter the industry, and it's to our detriment as a community as we are missing out on their contribution. I started a pay-what-you-can yoga studio in 2013, Yoga for All, that I am really proud of, and I am looking forward to creating some online content with a similar pricing model to help make Yoga and Taoist ideas more accessible.

As life slowly resumes back to something resembling normalcy, a lot of us are feeling the change of pace. How can we maintain a sense of slow amidst the chaos of modern-day living? 

I think self-knowledge and self-inquiry is so important if you find modern life chaotic. Each of us needs to know what we require to thrive and what serves us, and then create the space for that nourishment to be served regularly. There's that internet meme about humans being complicated houseplants, and it's true! Each of us has a certain amount of tolerance or bandwidth we can operate within. We need to respect ourselves enough to honour that.

I have spoken to people who thrive on and miss the pace of 'normal' life. I am not that kind of person. I adore quiet, stillness, space, dropping out of the world, being alone in nature, that kind of stuff. But my life has been busy these last few years and the things that help me when things are hectic are taking small breaks throughout the day (sunshine and green ideally, meditation optimally), having a routine, eating nourishing, soft, slow-cooked foods prepared with love and care, taking regular holidays (this is something I am terrible at but I want to be better so I am including it!), having a stillness practice (I practice and teach Yin Yoga because it's kind of the gateway drug to stillness, you get to practice being still until you get better at it), turning off devices and deleting social media apps most of the time, having a slow hobby (cooking and gardening are mine but other friends like knitting/woodworking), and having a calm(ish) home.

I know I mentioned it already but meditation is so powerful. I am always amazed that the crazy, jagged-edge person who sits down, can stand up 30 mins later and be happy, harmonious and calm. It's like magic. All that said, I have found that iso has helped me to appreciate how much slower I want to live, hence my big life change! I am an advocate for listening to your gut. I was getting messages for a few months that I was overcommitted and the anxiety totally dissipated the day I gave that desire to step down its voice. So much of our suffering is our own inability to say what is difficult and painful to the people we love, or even to those we don't love. If you are a slow, quiet person who needs lots of space, it might be time to start to voice that need so that you feel heard and can find the support to shift to a more sustainable lifestyle. We all have a choice and to get off the never-ending merry-go-round of the modern world is an act of brave rebellion in my opinion! It's not easy, but it's worth it.

What kind of rituals do you integrate into your days to keep you healthy and happy? 

The most important ones are Yoga of some kind - and I am using the term in its fullest sense, so a moment to connect to something bigger than me or some discerning self-awareness can constitute Yoga, as can 2 hours on the mat or a bit of breathing - and tonic herbs. They're the things that sorted me out, that took me from a moderately depressed, bulimic teenager/20 something to a happy, healthy, slightly overcommitted mama now in my 30s. I try and integrate both daily, and I notice that I can survive without them but I don't feel like I am truly thriving if I go too long between herb hits and practices. I do other practices from the Taoist tradition, qi gong, Jade eggs, and abdominal massage (chi nei tsang) as well as some ayurvedic practices like abhyanga and tongue scraping regularly (tongue scraping twice a day!) to keep my body healthy too. I also love baths (or bodies of water of any kind), short infrared sauna sessions, walking, and reading before bed. I also try and eat at regular times, as my constitution thrives on consistency.

I love to say my thanks and acknowledge the grace I have in my life every night before sleep. I usually whisper into my pillow the things I am grateful for. They always start with "him, her, Goji (our dog) and me," and then they go into whatever I am vibing the gratitude vibes for. My teacher's teacher spoke of how an attitude of gratitude is the most powerful spiritual tool anyone can cultivate, but it's also the hardest path, as we are so often not truly grateful, so I try and practice daily saying thank you for all that I have, and all that I Am. 

And every day my daughter and I talk about her day, what she remembers and what I remember and what fun things we did and what we saw. It's so silly and simple but it really connects us and it's her favourite part of the day. Those little toddler kisses are ridiculously sweet, so I always try and sneak a goodnight kiss too.