The Evolution of This Blog

The Evolution of me... 

It began in January 2010 as a way to take back control of my weight.

That’s the neat version of the story. The tidy headline.

But the truth is, the journey began long before that - in quiet comparisons, in restless striving, in the subtle belief that if I could just fix my body, everything else would fall into place.

I remember once being told by a close family friend that I had such a pretty face - it was just a pity the body let me down. A sentence tossed out casually. Perhaps unintentionally hurtful. Perhaps never meant to linger.

But it did.

There were other moments too. Comparisons to one of my aunties in stature - words I absorbed as insult, never pausing to see the fullness of her beauty, her wisdom, her steadiness. I filtered everything through the lens of insecurity. I translated neutral into negative. I collected comments like evidence.

My weight began to define me.

Not only because of the nicknames - “garbage guts,” “tubby,”  "womble butt" - or the offhand remarks that stung more than they should have. But because I allowed them to. I let those words sink beneath the surface. I let them take root. I let them feel true.

I wore them like invisible ink. 

I let them tattoo themselves onto my skin.

And so when I say this blog began as a health and fitness journey, what I really mean is that it began as an attempt to outrun a story I had been telling myself for years. A story where my worth was conditional. Where my value rose and fell with the number on a scale.

Health and fitness became my compass. I tracked, trained, measured, refined. And I wrote. I blogged my way through the becoming - sharing milestones, setbacks, lessons learned through discipline and determination. For years, the rhythm was simple: effort in, results out. Movement as medicine. Control as comfort.

Then in August 2016, something shifted.

I began to look beneath the surface. Beyond macros and mileage. Beyond aesthetic goals and personal bests. I started asking deeper questions about identity, about values, about the stories I carried and the ones I was ready to rewrite. Health and fitness were still there, but they were no longer the whole picture. They were threads - not the entire tapestry.

Now, fitness as I once knew it sits quietly on the sidelines. Missed, yes. Remembered fondly. And one day, when I can trust myself not to push beyond my own limitations - not to override my body in the name of achievement - it will return in a gentler form. But life has grown more complex. My health has grown more complex. And how could that not shape the writing?

This space has evolved as I have.

What started as blogging has become something more intentional. More rooted. I’m no longer just documenting progress. I’m leaving a legacy.

Not perfectly curated content - but breadcrumbs home.

Home to who I was. 

Home to who I am. 

Home to who I am still becoming.

My entries are sporadic - sometimes flowing one after the other, words spilling out faster than I can hold them. Other times, they fall silent for months. Even a year. Life expands. Energy shifts. Seasons change.

But I always come back.

Because writing these posts is a form of therapy.

As someone who chronically overthinks - who often feels like there are too many browser tabs open in my mind at once - writing is my way of closing them, one by one. It is a cathartic process. A quiet untangling. A place where the noise softens enough for clarity to rise.

It helps me process my thoughts. 

It helps me sit with my emotions. 

It helps me make sense of the jumbled, beautiful mess that is my mind.

I write to preserve memory. To hold onto moments before they blur at the edges. To share lived wisdom - not as instruction, but as offering. To offer light through honesty. Not the harsh glare of perfection, but the steady glow of truth.

These words are a time capsule.

For my children... so they might one day know the texture of my thoughts, not just the outline of my days.
For my future self... so she can remember what it took to get here.
And for anyone walking through their own dark season... who might need to borrow a little light until theirs steadies again.

I won’t only share the polished chapters. I’ll share the unraveling too.

Because the unraveling is where the becoming happens.

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The Dangers of Drinking Concrete

Beyond the Edge of My Energy...

I wrote recently about returning in memory to the ancient oak tree, about being held under her branches and feeling that quiet, steady comfort, about remembering softness.

This entry is about what happens when I forget.

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote, “The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.”

I spent most of my adult life taking that literally. It felt like a philosophy made for people like me... ambitious, disciplined, quietly relentless. The kind of person who believes effort can outsmart limitation. I am 51 years old, and I have spent decades unapologetically venturing past my limits... decades of perfecting the art of overriding the whispers of my body... decades convinced that resilience meant endurance. That strength meant pushing. That discipline meant overriding discomfort.

I show up. I don’t quit. I push. I achieve. I keep going long after most people would stop. I do the things I “should”, because I "can"... even when my body says no.

And then sometimes… more often than not... I pay for it.

Drinking Concrete

In jest, my husband suggested the title of this blog 'The Dangers of Drinking Concrete'.

Thing is, he’s not wrong. I swallow discomfort. I harden around it. I turn pain into productivity. Symptoms into inconvenience. Warning signs into background noise. Concrete sets hard. It holds. It doesn’t bend. But, concrete cracks eventually. I’ve cracked more than once.

There is a particular kind of grief that comes when you realise that willpower is not the same as capacity. That determination does not magically expand physiology. That mindset does not override mitochondria, hormones, inflammation, nervous system load. If I just tried harder... managed better... planned more efficiently, I believed I could outwit my symptoms. And occasionally, I could.

But it always came at a cost.

The Ankle Incident

There are moments that show us ourselves more clearly than we’d like.

A few weeks ago, I badly sprained my ankle at the beach. Ironically, I had been frolicking in the surf, feeling free, alive. The ocean gives and takes in the same breath. One wrong step in the shifting sand, and I was down. It swelled. It throbbed. It screamed. The next morning, I went into the city for clinical placement anyway.

Of course I did.

I limped between consult rooms. I smiled through the pain. I elevated it in stolen moments. Told myself it wasn’t that bad. Told myself I could push through. A week later, still swollen and sore, I finally went to the emergency department. Not because I wanted to. Because I had to.

Push. Override. Pay later.

It was such a familiar pattern. The quiet negotiation with pain. The belief that endurance equals strength. The subtle refusal to acknowledge limitation. And the hardest part wasn’t the injury, it was recognising how automatic the denial had become.

And yet, I don’t tell this story with judgement. I tell it with compassion. Because this is how learning happens, not through perfect choices, but through finally seeing our patterns clearly enough to choose differently next time.

The Reckoning

During my clinical training, sitting with patients, witnessing invisible illness, holding space for complex stories... something began to shift... something in me began to soften. I could see in them what I had refused to see in myself. That complexity is real. That chronic conditions are not moral failures. That pacing is not weakness. That rest is not resignation. 

There is something profoundly confronting about recognising your own reflection in the case you’re supporting. I began to acknowledge that my cycles weren’t random. They were predictable outcomes of a nervous system that had been asked, repeatedly, for decades, to operate beyond sustainable limits.

Living in denial kept those cycles alive. Denial sounds harsh, but it often wears respectable clothing. It looks like high achievement. It looks like productivity. It looks like “coping.” But underneath, it whispers: "Don't you dare quit. Suck it up. Just drink some concrete. You're all good."

Slowly, I am starting to make peace with the fact that my body has limits. Real ones. Not imagined. Not excuses. Real ones.

And it’s okay.

When Pushing Doesn’t Work

Clarke’s words speak to innovation and expansion. In science and art, perhaps we must test edges to discover new ground. But I live in a body that does not always cooperate with the narrative. This is where motivational quotes begin to feel complicated. Because what happens when venturing into the impossible doesn’t create innovation, but triggers symptoms? What happens when bravery looks less like pushing forward, and more like stopping early enough to protect tomorrow’s energy?

I live inside that paradox. 

Chronic illness teaches a different kind of wisdom. When you live by your energy... when you count your day in invisible units... venturing “just a little past” the impossible is not visionary… it is destabilising. For someone wired like me, uncomfortable with stillness, allergic to falling behind, that distinction matters deeply. Because in my body, not listening to the whisper... pushing beyond the edge of my energy does not expand my world. It shrinks it.

I don’t just “run out of steam,” I cross an invisible line and fall into depletion, the kind that steals days, sometimes weeks. One ignored signal can spiral into many. One act of denial reinforces an old and familiar loop: push, override, pay later.

For me, the impossible isn’t doing more. It’s restraint. It’s stopping before collapse.

Redefining Strength

Part of me still believes in expansion, in discovering what’s possible. And another part knows that protecting my finite currency, means spending wisely. So how do I reconcile these two truths? The part of me that wants to reach farther, and the body that asks me to move more gently? There was a time when I thought acceptance meant giving up. 

Now I see it differently.

Acceptance is not resignation. It is collaboration. It is saying "This is the body I have. These are the conditions that exist. And this life is still worthy of care, curiosity, and possibility." Making peace with the complexity of my health has not meant giving up on growth. It has meant redefining it. Strength isn’t concrete. It bends. It adjusts. It forgives. Listening to my body doesn’t shrink my life the way I feared. It protects it. It expands it. Saying “I can’t today” isn’t defeat. It’s wisdom.

I am learning... slowly, imperfectly... that growth is stopping before collapse. It is leaving energy in the bank. It is building a life that works with my physiology, not against it. It doesn’t live in overexertion. It lives in precision. In noticing the difference between stretching and straining. Between courage and compulsion. Energy once spent on denial can be redirected toward living. Toward choosing carefully. Toward honouring the days I feel strong without punishing myself for the ones that don’t. Even if that feels impossible at first.

Because for someone who has built her identity around capability and endurance, acceptance can feel far more radical than overexertion. Now, I understand that the edge of possibility looks different for me. Perhaps my version of venturing into the impossible is not by pushing beyond my limits, but by accepting them fully.

Sometimes the impossible isn’t doing more... it’s finally giving yourself permission to do less.

Sometimes the impossible thing is trusting that rest is productive, even when nothing visible is being achieved. And perhaps that is the quiet revolution chronic illness offers: Learning that expansion doesn’t always come from doing more. 

Sometimes it comes from finally listening.

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Under Her Branches

There was an ancient oak behind our old house.

She wasn’t just a tree, she felt like a presence. A quiet place where the world softened and time loosened its grip.

I used to sit beneath her for long stretches, looking up through her branches, watching light move in ways that made everything else feel small. There was nothing to achieve there. Nothing to fix. Just breath, stillness, and the slow remembering of myself.

Somewhere along the way, I grew apart from that kind of silence. Life became louder. Busier. Full of movement and expectation. But the feeling of sitting beneath her never really left, it lived quietly in the background, waiting to be returned to.

Under Her Branches came from that remembering.

The verses are gentle and finger-plucked, like footsteps back into stillness. Slow, spacious, unhurried, the way time felt under her shade. The pauses matter as much as the notes, because silence was always part of the experience.

Then the chorus lifts to feel the spirit rise, like the moment you exhale and realise you’re safe. That shift from holding on to letting go. From thinking to simply being.

This recording is raw. A scratch track. Imperfect timing, imperfect angles, imperfect hands, but maybe that’s the point. The feeling itself was never polished. It was honest, simple, and real.

This song is my way of returning to that place.
To the ground beneath me.
To the calm that grows when nothing needs to be forced.
To the quiet sense that something sacred lives in ordinary moments.

If you listen, I hope it carries you there too, even for a moment, beneath her branches, where everything slows, and you remember what it feels like to just be.

Under Her Branches

Verse 1
Ancient Oak behind our old house
She leaned into the sky
I’d lay back in the long grass
And watch the daylight climb
Sunlight through her fingers
Fell dancing on my face
Praying in the silence
Transcended in time and space

Chorus
Under her branches
I was quiet, I was small
Didn’t need the answers
Just let go of it all
The wind would turn the pages
Of a sky so wide and blue
Under her branches
The calm within me grew

Verse 2
No phone, no ticking hour hand
No somewhere else to be
Just the ground beneath me
God’s presence in her leaves
The world felt less demanding
When I listened to her sway
She never tried to change me
But she did anyway

Bridge
Now the days are louder
And the nights don’t fall the same
Sometimes, I close my eyes
And whisper out her name
If I could find that silence
I know just what I’d do
I’d lay down in her shadow
And let myself be new

Final Chorus

Under her branches
I was steady, I was free
Nothing left to measure
Just me, being me

Under her branches
I was quiet, I was small
Didn’t need the answers
Just let go of it all
The wind still turns the pages
Of a sky so wide and blue
Under her branches
The calm within me grew

Copywrite Music & Lyrics by Natasha Hurst-Shilling (13.02.26)

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I'm back, back again!

Howdy Folks,

Yup, Im back! Its been 2 years and 13 days since my last post!

Gosh the consistency has been lacking on this blog hey, to be honest that is the case for quite a few aspects in my life, but let's not get into that now or else I'll ramble on for ages and pages!

Whilst I didn't officially blog I did do instagram posts, even though admittedly they also dwindled a bit, but if you have time on your hands and want to check it out you can find me at instagram.com/tashhurst

As is the case when I've been MIA on here for so long, I like to give you a recap before I dive into the nitty gritty, so here goes...

2023

August 

- Louis' 20th

September 

- Jazz went to pub for the 1st time, we went to an over 28s night and missed the kids.

October
- Jazz finished Year 12
- 9 year friendaversary
- Markys 51st Birthday

November
- Jazz's Soccer presentation
- Jazz car accident 21st

- Car written off
- Jazz got a Horticulture award
- Ace blew a tyre on FWY day he got P2 licence
- Jazz's Valedictory

December
- CT and nerve block in back
- Louis got Cert II in Hospitality and started Cert III
- I turned 49th
- Took Mum to Miss Saigon
- James turn 18
- Ace away for work
- Jazz on first date with first GF
- Family xmas including Marks sister and Fam.

2024

January
- Ace turned 20
- Jazz got a car
- Torquay family day

February
- Waitangi family day
- Jazz's first heart break
- Pneumonia
- Stitches in toe

March
- Ace got car - Skyla
- Mum and Dad visited from Tassie

April
- Louis first pub job
- 6th wedding anniversary
- Dad been gone 33 years (Handled it better).
- James got Ps
- Sarah went on Euro trip and G moved in :)

May
- Sam's 24th Bday at Taco Bills and  BBQ at her Mums dancing like crazy people.
- 1 year since Donna's passing.
- Louis got his Cert 3

June
- Jazz turned 19
- Sarah came home and G went home.

July
- Uni but I dont know what else!
- Mental health changed dramatically!

August
- Louis turned 21
- Had Surgery on lapband port again!

September
- Recovery - discovered I loved horror movies (who the hell am I?).
- Got my hair coloured.

October
- Jazz got his Ps
- Road trip to Packers (absolutely terrified on the way there).
- 10 year friendaversary
- Marks 52nd B'day
- Shit news!

November
- Mum turned 70th
- Sam moved out
- John williamson Concert
- Keanas Dance Concert
- Completed EFT diploma
- Juliette entered our life (Louis' GF).

December
- I turned 50!
- James turned 19
- I started driving again (using EFT to help).
- 3 Christmas celebrations

2025

January
- Ace turned 21 and saw the Hurst-Smith family reunited.
- Torquay weekend
- Catch up with Pa
- I cut my hair short
- Deep clean mode
- Ace hurt his hand at work and needed it glued
- Jazz joined the gym

February
- Went to GPAC Billy Elliot production
- Ace was made redundant

March
- I got Baptised
- Ace found new job, started 4th year of apprenticeship

April
- Notice to vacate due to selling (again)!
- 7th wedding anniversary
- Moved into new house on Anzac Day
- Dad gone 34 years

May
- Said Goodbye to No9k
- Louis got his Ps
- Found lump in foob

June
- Jazz turned 20
- I got covid and couldn't celebrate with him

July
- Got No23H all unpacked
- Biopsy

August
- Driving again (but not on FWY).
- Louis 22nd
- Another Biopsy
- Ace started going to trade school

September
- Got clear results!!!
- Made decision not to have next breast surgery, yet!

October
- Finished all theory subjects for uni!
- Started uni clinic blocks

And there you have it, the past 2 years and 13 days of my life!

Well, there was more. For example., family catchups, games nights, pub nights (for the kids), friends celebrations, medical appointments,  uni campus days, uni assessments, uni, uni, uni, haha.

To be completely real and raw, there were some pretty dark and heavy days during that time. Probably the darkest that I've had in quite some time.

For ages I couldn't accept that my usual positive polly self was replaced by this glum and gloomy masked person!

I mean, I had (still have) an amazing husband, kids, family, was (still am) working towards my dream career, and yet..., I thought the world would be a better place if I wasn't in it! 

Whilst I'm not lost in that darkness anymore with those thoughts, I still have grey days where I dont want to get out of bed and face the world.  The difference is, that I still want to be in it!

I may talk more about that in future blogs, but Ill just leave things here for now!

If you are here reading this, thank you xo

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