What does “losing our peace” mean?

Let’s look at something that happens every day.

Here’s easy one: traffic. Someone cuts you off and immediately you think They broke the rules! How dare they! you get angry.

Your pulse jumps, maybe there’s some honking, fingers are flying out the window, nasty looks, passing them angrily. Do you follow them?
Is there road rage? How far does this go?

Or maybe you don't do any of that, but your driving totally changes. You drive angry for the rest of the day and get home miffed. Your morning started off so well—a nice cup of coffee, a warm donut, a kiss goodbye. One bad driver and poof, all of that is gone.

Or maybe it happens at work: A coworker makes a little comment about your shoes or your pants, and now it’s just circling in your mind. Or maybe they took your favorite desk, now you have to sit somewhere else, and suddenly you feel like your whole day is ruined.

We run into this stuff all the time. There’s always some narrative that our mind goes into and keeps going unless something gets us out of it.

The car thing alone sounds like a streaming show. One rude gesture, one dirty look, and an entire season of revenge and car chases takes off! A single conversation at work can fuel drama going!

Now, these are just quick, momentary situations that catch us off guard. Losing our peace can also be a long-term thing—like burnout, bad sleep, a frayed relationship—and we’ll definitely talk about those in another episode. But this daily stuff? It's so normal. This is how we are used to reacting pretty much everyday.

What is “the Peace” then?

When we finally left Las Vegas, Lex said they wanted to see the “real” desert. So, we pointed the car toward the highway and drove straight through Death Valley.

It was stunning. We kept stopping to take stock of the vast, endless landscapes—the kind of long open highways you always see in movies out West with a lone motorcyclist riding into the distance. But as we drove further in, it got hotter, rockier, emptier, and much more desolate. The wind howled through the canyons where the only creatures around were small moths or timid hoppers. Up in the sky, the clouds looked like bright flying saucers, casting far away shadows over the landscape. We just kept pointing the camera at all the beautiful sights, trying to take it all in.

Then we reached the sand dunes, where the air was dry and suffocatingly hot. People would jump out of their cars, take a quick picture, and immediately run back to the A/C. You could see small pine trees being slowly swallowed up by the sand, while others had already succumbed to it, leaving dry trunks tossed in the middle of the dunes like twisted, abandoned furniture. All the while, there was this deep, ominous rumble in the background—unseen military jets piercing the UFO clouds and making dark silhouettes against the bright blue sky.

Later, we stopped to look at the salt flats shimmering far away like a white sea. It felt like walking on a knife’s edge. There were warning signs everywhere saying “Heat Kills” and “Stay on the Road.” We heard on the news that sadly a tourist died out there not long ago after his car got stuck and he tried to walk for help. Being there in person, you totally get it. It’s so easy to imagine that nobody is coming to rescue you in that desolation Around the rocks, though, I started looking closely at the plants. Some looked like little sticks with trembling green lollipops on the ends. Others were pale bushes with twisted leaves that caught the light, shimmering to deflect the sun like the silver ants of the Sahara. Looking at them, my mind immediately kicked in: How harsh it must be to live here. Maybe I should give this poor plant some of my water. It would appreciate it so much.

Then I stopped myself. What about the rest of the plants out here? They didn't need my water. They’ve lived here forever. This harsh heat is just normal to them. Do they suffer, or do they just call it “life” while I’m the one making up all these urgent stories? Surrounded by all that beauty, the alien environment, the heat, the “helpless” plants, the weird rumbles in the distance and the UFO clouds, I was ready to help the plants; the small bushes needed my help, according to me.

That was the real lesson of the desert. In that massive isolation and stillness, my mind got caught up trying to "rescue" a bush that was doing just fine. The desert became a kind of meditation. There was just enough space and harshness out there to quiet the ambient world so I could finally notice my own internal noise. When things get quiet and tough, our minds love to create seductive, urgent narratives. If we can pause and catch ourselves doing that, we might actually understand ourselves. And when we listen to that stillness, maybe we can start to understand each other, too.

One theme that keeps coming up in our conversations back home is this idea of sitting still and listening. It sounds simple enough when you’re just talking about it, but actually doing it is another story.

We recently took a trip out West. We’d been talking for years about going out there and just driving on the open roads—seeing the mountains, the deserts, and just getting a taste of a completely different side of the country that we’re not accustomed to. We wanted to spend a few days in Nevada and then trek over to California by car to sightsee. Coming from our lush, green Florida home, the landscape was unbelievable. While we were in Nevada, we checked out places near Las Vegas like the Valley of Fire, Red Rock Canyon, and a declining Lake Mead. The rocks were vibrantly colored, there were huge mountains and deep canyons, barely any water, and all these plants and animals we had never seen before in this painted desert setting.

And permeating all of it—every single sight, the flora, the fauna—was the heat.

Now, we’re used to heat, living in Florida. But this heat was on a whole other level. It was blistering, heavy, and completely energy-zapping. It really forced us to pay attention right away to our bodies and our immediate needs, and to think about what was actually required just to stay alive in such a hostile environment. In the canyons of the Mojave, we suddenly had to calculate every little move. Where do we stand? How far are we willing to walk just to get a picture? Is climbing that tall hill really worth it? How long can you stand in the direct sun waiting for the perfect shot? The heat made us appreciate our time because our time out in the open felt so precious. It forced us to focus. It forced us to listen.

While we were dealing with that, we saw these desert bighorn sheep grazing right out in the middle of the heat. They looked so completely at home. Our immediate reaction was to think about how tough their lives must be out there. We saw a small family of them grazing among the rocks, totally unbothered. But then, as we watched, we realized that small family was walking over to join another group of 10 to 15 sheep. And then, a little later, we realized that group was meeting up with an even bigger herd waiting for them over the ridge! There were easily over 30 sheep just thriving, going about their normal day. Here we were, holding onto this narrative about their tough, impossible life, while the reality right in front of us was an entire community doing just fine.

In our regular routines back home, we rarely listen with that level of clarity. We move through air-conditioned rooms, packed calendars, and constant noise, assuming we understand how everything and everyone around us feels. The desert heat was humbling because it took away the cushion of ease. It forced us to pay attention to our bodies, our limits, and the reality right in front of our eyes instead of the story we wanted to tell about it. Sometimes, it takes a landscape where you cannot hide from the sun to finally slow down, pay attention, and simply see things as they are.