Stop the THOUGHT

Stopping the Thought

On food, faith, and the quiet discipline of the mind

Late last week I drove home alone from a speaking assignment, and I felt like I had fallen short. I’d been asked to fill in for another speaker, and the exact direction for my talk — “Raising the Bar and Setting Sights on the Temple” — came together only the day of the event. I’d prepared examples I loved, meant to give those young women real reasons to reach high now. But driving home, I wasn’t sure I’d given them what was wanted. Maybe someday one of those girls will tell me it mattered. That night, I just felt the weight of maybe having missed the mark.

The season I’m in

These past six months I’ve been wrestling with fatigue. It seems to come in waves every couple of years, and here is the good news I’ve learned to hold onto: every time one of these waves hits, I come out the other side stronger and a little wiser about health and healing.

A while back I confessed to a friend that I felt like a hypocrite — a health and wellness coach who wasn’t perfectly well. She gently turned it around for me. It’s because I’ve struggled and worked to overcome, she said, that I have something real to offer others. This season isn’t a failure. It’s a teacher. I’m learning to trust that God has something more He wants me to understand.

The great supplement debate

Here’s where it gets honest — and a little funny. My husband is convinced he knows my answer: supplements. More supplements!

And I… have a lot of pride about supplements. I don’t want to take them. I think of the people Dr. Weston A. Price documented in the early 1900s — communities around the world who were vibrantly healthy on whole, unprocessed food, no capsules required. If they could do it, I reasoned, so could I.

We had a real debate about it (yes, my husband and I actually got worked up arguing about food supplements). He wanted me to try some designed to calm inflammation. I pushed back hard: how could I stand in front of the world and teach people to be well, and then tell them the secret was a pill? He kept pressing — that’s his nature, always nudging toward action — and I’m the kind who longs to stay calm and still. So we went back and forth.

His argument, when I finally listened, was this: even those of us who try our hardest no longer have access to truly pure air, water, and soil. He believes almost everyone today could use a little help — a good omega oil, trace minerals, a whole-food supplement — simply because our modern world can’t give us everything our bodies need the way it once did.

Over the following days, as I simmered down, I kept turning it over. I thought about how different today’s produce is from the garden my mom tended when I was a girl — soil she fed with ash, compost, and manure, and rotated with care. I thought about how traditional cultures leaned on fermented foods rich in natural enzymes to help digestion, and on the most nutrient-dense parts of the animal, not just the muscle meat. And I had to admit: our food supply really has changed.

My husband eventually softened his line to, “Okay — maybe ninety-five percent of people don’t eat the way we do.” And having traveled to several countries, I’ve seen with my own eyes the difference between people living close to the land on food they raise and people living on highly refined, industrial food. He isn’t wrong that the deck is stacked against us.

What I finally decided

I still believe, with my whole heart, that real, whole food — as close to how God made it as possible — is the foundation of health. Nothing replaces the real thing. But I’ve come to peace with a humbler truth too: in a depleted, modern world, a few well-chosen, whole-food-based supplements can help fill the gaps, especially in a hard season like this one. So I’ve quietly started taking an omega, a vitamin, and a mineral supplement. We’ll see if my energy returns. It doesn’t make me a hypocrite. It makes me a person doing her honest best with the world as it actually is.

And I hold onto the evidence right in my own home. My husband recently earned some of the best scores his doctor had seen in a very long time. My children have been remarkably healthy for years. What we’re doing is making a difference — and it’s my prayer to keep growing stronger, in body and spirit, one season at a time.

And now — stopping the thought

Which brings me to what I really wanted to share with you.

On that drive home, feeling low, I wanted to pull off at Good Earth and buy a box of Charlotte’s gluten-free sugar cookies. The longer I sat with the feeling, the stronger the pull became. I’ll be honest with you: when I’m hurting, food is one of the places I’ve reached for comfort. I’ve done it before — turned to food to soothe a hard day, and felt worse afterward, in body and heart. Naming that honestly is the first kindness I can offer myself, because once I can see what I’m really feeling, I have a choice about how to meet it.

That night, as the craving rose, an old phrase from one of my young women leaders came back to me: stop it at the thought. I knew that if I kept turning the idea over, I’d eventually give in — not to something wicked, just to something that would leave my body aching and my energy gone for days. So I did the one thing that actually works for me. I remembered my dance teacher and mentor telling me, “Your mind can only hold one thought at a time. Replace the hard thought with a good one.”

So I did. I let the exit pass. I filled my mind with something else, and I drove on. I made it home, went to the pantry, reached for something nourishing, and talked through my disappointment out loud with my husband instead of swallowing it.

This is the quiet discipline I lean on, and I offer it to you gently, without an ounce of shame attached: when the pull comes, don’t wrestle the craving head-on — change the thought. Reach for a walk, a phone call, a cup of herbal tea, a prayer, a good memory. And be tender with yourself, because reaching for comfort is human, not sinful.

A few practical things help me too. I don’t shop hungry — sometimes I’ll eat a handful of almonds before I even walk through the door, then head straight for the produce. And I’ve noticed that the “no, no, no” I used to say to my kids in the aisles has slowly become “sure, yes, good choice.” Focusing on the good we can have, instead of policing the bad, changed everything — for them and for me.

A gentle word for my celiac readers

I’ll be honest about one hope I used to carry: that one day I’d be “completely well” and could eat a little gluten again with no reaction. I’ve since made peace with the truth, and I want you to have it too, because it matters for your safety. Celiac disease is a lifelong autoimmune condition — it isn’t something we outgrow or heal past, and gluten doesn’t become safe over time, no matter how nourished and well we become or no matter what well meaning others may have told you. They may not see the damage, but it is still happening. That’s exactly why the gluten-free life is worth the effort: caring for our bodies faithfully protects our long-term health. So these days, “being well” means something better to me anyway — energy, peace, and wholeness in body, mind, and spirit. That kind of wellness really is within reach.

I’ll leave you with a few thoughts on thought that I’ve carried a long time:

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it."— Marcus Aurelius

"Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so."— William Shakespeare

"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." — James Allen

"Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds."— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Stop it at the thought. Replace it with something good. This is true not only for food, but for nearly every hard thing we’re trying to overcome.

Here’s to health — and to a gentle, hopeful mind.

Love,

Steffanie

This post shares my personal experience and is offered for encouragement, not as medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition; please work with a qualified healthcare provider about your own health, diet, and any supplements. If food and your emotions ever feel like a painful battle, please know that support is available and you don’t have to face it alone — a trusted professional can help.