Why Canceling People Isn't Working (and What Does)

Letting our hair down! In this playful episode of Beauty in the Break, Foster and Cesar answer rapid-fire questions that pull back the curtain on their deeper selves. From sleeping in odd places and the hottest non-sexual turn-ons to their most inspirational couples and political accountability in this democracy. It's part comedy, part philosophy, part relationship deep-dive, and an unscripted glimpse into the minds and dynamic of the two people behind the mic. 

In this episode they explore: 

• Foster’s hot take on the American medical system
• Cesar’s hot take on the American political system
• The hottest thing Foster can wear to turn Cesar on (it’s not what you think!) 
• How Cesar can make the entire Universe make sense in just 10 minutes

Also mentioned:

• Episode 23: Our Most Uncomfortable Conversation Yet: Money
• Episode 39: How to Keep Your Light in Dark Times with Lesley Fera

You can also watch the episodes on YouTube!

If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to follow Beauty in the Break on your favorite podcast app and leave a review—it really helps!

Reach out to the show—send an email or voice note to beautyinthebreakpod@gmail.com and be sure to follow on Instagram and TikTok. 

Cesar Cardona:

• Receive his newsletter Insights That Matter
• Get guided meditation from Cesar on his website 
• Listen to music from Cesar + The Clew on Apple Music and Spotify

Foster Wilson:

• Buy her poetry book Afternoon Abundance
• Learn about her postpartum services
• Receive her newsletter Foster’s Village

Created & Hosted by: Cesar Cardona and Foster Wilson

Executive Producer: Glenn Milley

This episode is brought to you by Jamaal Pittman. You can donate to his scholarship at WheelerScholarship.com, supporting college enrollment.

Transcript

We got pulled over in a small town, and because I'm black and he was white,
the cop told Joe's dad, this is what happens when we let our sons hang out with them.
Oh, okay, but what's your hot take right now?
We need to stop being appalled by what the president does
and start finding out why we got into a space that we can let this happen
and what accountability we can take for ourselves.
Welcome to Beauty and the Break.
Here we explore stories of how barriers are broken, both within ourselves and within the world.
I'm Foster Wilson.
And I'm Cesar Cardona.
This is a home for you, questioning the rules you inherited and choosing your own path forward.
We are here with you on this messy and courageous journey.
Let's dive in.
Where's the most unusual place you've fallen asleep?
Are we recording?
Yes.
When I was pregnant, I slept at the museum in New York.
He's so proud of himself.
I'm so proud of you.
Oh, in the museum, I slept.
Every time we're recording, you're like, oh, oh, and then you went recording.
And the museum once, and the night was sultry.
Continue.
I was exhausted in my pregnancy.
I napped on a bench in the museum, and my dad napped under the bench.
You lay down under the bench?
Under the bench.
It was inside.
How big was the bench?
He's so tall.
Yeah, long.
Wow.
And I slept on it.
I had to sleep.
Somebody must have took a photo of that.
Your brother or something.
No, I have no photos from it, but I wish.
It was great.
Ironically, I don't really have unusual places that I slept in.
I slept in my car for the first couple weeks that I lived here in Los Angeles, in North Hollywood,
in front of that beauty supply store that's on Magnolia between Tujunga and Lancashire.
Just in case anybody ever wants to stop and look at the spot, because it's kind of cool.
It's just diagonal to the left from the NoHo Diner.
Your first home in LA.
That was it, yeah.
That's really it.
I ended up sleeping in my car a little bit in the end of 2018, because I was in a breakup,
and I was using drugs heavily, and I had no money.
I slept in my car again, and I remember thinking in that moment, this is how people become homeless.
They come out here, they blow all their money on drugs, and they get into a breakup,
and there's nowhere they can really go.
And in that moment, I started to really make some adjustments.
Not too long after that, I walked into that Buddhist temple, and my life changed.
I know someone who is crowd surfing right now with a 10-year-old and an infant.
Couch surfing.
Couch surfing.
Yeah.
I just want to pause and just make a point.
Somebody's crowd surfing at a concert with an infant and a 10-year-old at a Coldplay event?
Why is it that?
That's so interesting.
That sucks.
It sucks.
They're doing it on the app?
Couch surf, the app?
No, no.
They're just staying with friends.
It's a very sad situation.
Okay.
There's an app that you can do as well.
Oh, yeah.
And people, they'll rate you on it and whatnot.
I did that as well.
There was a dude who lived in North Hollywood.
He was letting people just stay on his couch.
I stayed there, I think, for one night, I want to say.
He was super friendly, and we stayed in touch for a little while.
You pay money?
No.
No.
It's free?
It's legit.
That's it.
People do have a company.
Wasn't it for them?
Company.
Kindness of their own heart.
It's wild.
It was, yeah.
And I'm sure there's some cases where it's like, oh, you know, buy the groceries, or I'm
sure, shit like that.
But that guy in particular, I forget his name, really friendly guy.
I saw his place, his apartment.
I slept there, I think, I want to say maybe one night, maybe.
And when I looked at the reviews, people were talking about how nice he was.
Nice, nice, nice.
That's all the way.
And then one person just commented one word, Scientologist.
That explains everything now.
And then I moved here.
I just moved here.
I was like, the first Scientologist I've ever met in my life, you know?
Cool.
So I talked to him, and he was like, yeah, yeah, that guy said that.
You know, he's like, I am.
I'm a Scientologist, whatever.
I'm a Scientologist.
He didn't try to convert you?
Nah.
Okay.
I've known three Scientologists in my life.
None of them have tried to convert me.
They're all pretty chill.
They're all a little askew in their way they see the world and their demeanors.
One of them said to me, he said, I just want to say this.
Some of the stuff you're working on that's giving you problems, Scientology has the answer
for.
He said, but I'll never say anything else to you about it if you're out of respect for
you.
And I said, oh, I appreciate it.
Thanks.
And that was the end of that.
Okay.
Well, that's pretty good.
They get a pretty bad rap about that stuff.
They have a bad rap, but we should always know that whatever the rap is, there's always
going to be a pocket of like the opposite of that.
Yeah.
In everything in this fucking world.
I have a question for you.
Mm-hmm.
If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?
First thing first, I'm probably going to just see what my mom is still paying for something
that I can buy the rest of it for.
Just like buy it off.
Mm-hmm.
If she's, you know, whatever, her house or cars or whatever, take care of that.
I'd buy a bunch of the S&P, of course, and stocks.
I'd give it all to you and tell you to figure it out for me.
You're going to outsource your accounting?
Duh.
Come on now.
Delegate, delegate, delegate outside of your circle of competence.
I don't know.
You know, I came across a good amount of money some years ago.
And the first thing I did was the car that I had at the time.
I put all as much money as I could into fixing it up.
I told the mechanic, whatever needs to be done, fix it.
And then I donated the car to a mom in need.
And then I bought my car that I have in cash.
But that's a boring answer, though.
What if I go a little more zany?
If I, for the fun side, or just for the fun of it.
Something like, I would just go high-air ballooning or something.
Mm-hmm.
I'd go skydiving.
I've skydived once before.
Dodger tickets?
Oh, yeah.
See the tickets?
More baseball games, probably.
Yeah.
They're expensive now because the Dodgers are top of the world.
How about you?
That's pretty good.
The real answer is that I would, honest to God, invest it all in a way that I would have
six-plus figures, passive income every year.
Mm-hmm.
Then I would start to loosen up a lot of things in my life.
I think about this sometimes.
Like, why do we want more money?
Like, what is it?
And everybody's answer is different, but like-
You're talking about the deeper.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, what is it about more money that would solve our current problems?
That's a security thing.
At a certain point, you're secure.
There's more to it.
It's like, what would I spend my money on if I had more?
It always comes back to experiences.
Outside of the box, experiences that I have told myself, that is frivolous.
The other night, I went to a tea ceremony.
It was just for, honestly, vibes, atmosphere.
Space, connection.
And it was well worth it.
Yeah.
Well worth it.
I had an amazing time.
There's nothing outside of your realm, though, that you would want to do?
Like, you could do a breath work and a tea ceremony quite often.
Sure.
Would you want to skydive every week, though?
Not necessarily skydive, but just like out of your realm.
I think it's more travel.
More travel.
Because for me, experiences are about people.
I think probably I also would want to put together some sort of project that I don't have the funds for now.
I've written three pilots.
I could film that pilot.
I'd cast it.
I'd film it.
I'd shoot it.
I'd bring everybody on board.
And I'd make a whole thing about it.
It's so interesting because this exercise is really like about if this amount of money is going to make me secure, which nothing is really secure.
Beyond that, what is your daily life?
How would it be different?
And then distill that down into like, well, how can I make that in my life today?
Yeah.
I think more specifically, it's you can find out your passion.
You can find out the things that you really are deeply enthralled with.
And those are things that I already do every day anyway.
Right.
So how drastically would that amount of money change my life?
You would just do it at a larger scale.
We'd just do it at a larger scale.
Which is great because it can reach more people and you can help more people in that way as well.
What's something non-sexual that turns you on?
That's tough because everything is sexual to me because I'm a filthy McNasty.
When women have their hair tie on their wrist.
Really?
Very sexy.
Really?
Yeah.
What does that say?
I'm like, I don't actually have one right now because it's in my hair.
Yeah, you're hideous right now.
You're just like, I'm just so soft right now.
Well, I usually do.
But anyway, what is it about that?
I don't know.
I look at it and it seems strong.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Go figure that one out, Freud.
It's a sense of, it's not, but it's a sense of woman.
It's a sense of preparedness, I guess, at the same time.
It also just looks good aesthetically.
I briefly dated this woman.
We were FaceTiming once and she knew I had this attraction because I said it to her once.
And as soon as we get on the line, she goes, you ready?
And she puts her wrist right up to the camera and goes, and I'll never forget that when I think about the thing on the wrist, you know?
And I was like, oh, girl, you're doing it to me.
What about you?
Oh, come on.
I know yours.
Oh, what is it?
Anytime I tell you I like saved money or discounted and got something for cheap or free or whatever it was.
Okay.
I realized this today.
Yeah.
Okay.
So we've explored our money wounds, let's say, on this show before.
And one of the things for me is that I don't like spending money.
I can be quite rigid about spending money.
That's one piece of it, and that can be loosened up.
But I also have a fun piece that I enjoy the thrill of something being discounted, thrifting something, getting a deal on something.
Let's say I need to get my tires rotated, and I've called six places, and I found one place that was like $100 cheaper than all the rest.
I am lit up to go get my tires changed because I know I'm getting a great deal.
That side seems like a creative output.
Yeah.
And I get off on the idea that you could go through and be like, oh, look at all these services or subscriptions that I don't actually use that I can cancel now, and now I'm saving $70 a month because I canceled these four subscriptions.
Oh, that's so great.
Yeah.
It's so hot.
It's hot.
You can't see her face right now.
Her eyelids dropped.
They got soft, and then her eyes rolled in the back of her head.
It's yummy.
It's so delicious.
Do you have couples in your life that you admire?
What's special about their relationship?
I guarantee you and I are thinking the same couple.
Sure.
Ready?
One, two, three.
Lesley and Ned.
That is true.
That is true.
She was a guest on our show.
She was.
Lesley Fera.
We do.
That is the first person that comes to my mind.
And my aunt and uncle.
Yes.
So Lesley and Ned, friends of ours.
What's special about their relationship?
They just have a lot of fun together, and they really are each other's champions.
They're light with each other.
Yeah.
I like that a lot.
And they're real, and they're not afraid to banter, but it always has a fun energy to it.
And the four of us get along so well.
Hell yeah.
We should have them over again.
And then my aunt and uncle.
They have been together for so long.
I think 40 years.
I mean, I adore each of them in their individual humanness.
Like, they're beautiful soul.
They're very, each of them is very kind and gentle and intelligent, open to changing constantly,
like open to new ideas.
We had a coffee date with them on Zoom, and they found out that my uncle gets up every single morning and meditates.
I want to say that meditation has been a part of his life, a lot of his life.
But now in his, he's in his 70s for sure, the idea to begin a regular meditation practice at that age is so beautiful to me.
I think the two of them are also light with each other and authentic and real with each other,
and they appreciate each other's quirks, and they have a lot of fun together.
They have a lot of the same values, and they're very family-oriented.
Family is very important to them.
I agree, and you pick up on that from both of them.
Even when you meet them in the moment, they're peaceful from the jump.
My parents were divorced when I was eight.
I didn't realize it for a long time, but subconsciously I turned and I looked to my aunt and uncle
as the markers for like a strong and stable, happy is the wrong word, peaceful is maybe the better word,
like relationship because they've been through their ups and downs,
and they've just been very stable.
And so I realized that like I really look up to them in terms of what I always hoped for in a partnership for me.
I'm on the other side of that where I don't remember the age I was where I saw my first like healthy, working, peaceful couple.
Maybe it was in my teens perhaps.
The first time I saw a couple that was not yelling at each other, not being vindictive to each other,
not talking about each other behind each other's backs, or just not getting along and just coexisting.
Who was the first couple you saw?
Yeah, I can't.
I know.
I want to say my friend Joe, his parents, they got along quite well, and they were really sweet and kind to me.
He and I, we were 15, and he and I got arrested.
I was selling drugs.
We got pulled over on a highway and there was a bunch of drugs.
That got us picked up.
And this is a longer story that I'm happy to tell in a different episode because we're talking about something else here.
We got pulled over in a small town, and because I'm black and he was white,
the cop told Joe's dad, this is what happens when we let our sons hang out with them.
And his dad, as of right now that I know, is a Republican, Trump supporter, country man, like very country, talks like this very much.
And he's like, no, no, that's my son too.
And he just stood right by me the whole time.
The whole time.
And how they worked together was fun.
They'd go out every other, I'd go to his place on the weekends, and on Friday and Saturday nights, they'd just go,
they lived in a cul-de-sac, so they would go stand out there in their porch with all the other neighbors,
drinking Budweiser and smoking cigarettes, and just talk.
In the summer, I'd come up, I'd go over there on that Friday night, and I'd stay for a week.
My mom and her would talk on the phone, just like, he wants to stay there, is that okay?
She's like, yeah, it's great, he keeps Joe company, we love him.
Cool, and they were super kind to me.
And I never heard them yell.
I heard them, they disagreed, but it wasn't ever like a yell or nastiness.
What are you extremely opinionated about?
Everything.
This is why we have a podcast?
Yeah, truly.
I have a lot of opinions on most things.
Okay, well, what's your hot take right now?
The hot take, I would say right now, is that we need to stop being appalled by what the president does,
and start finding out why we got into a space that we can let this happen,
and what accountability we can take for ourselves.
And to be more specific is, and I'm very far left, we have to stop scolding people for doing shit that is not cool,
but they don't learn the lesson that way.
People don't understand that way when you scold them and try to cancel them and try to make them this villain.
It doesn't.
And the people who are in the middle are going to look at the people being scolded at, and they're going to start siding with them.
This reminds me of that story that you told one time about your mom, and the person that came over was racist.
That's exactly how she behaved in that moment.
Your mom, which was not to scold the person who was racist, who wouldn't look at her and come into her house because she was black.
It was to go meet her right where she is, not talk anything about that, and just show her who she was.
And if we keep doing this scolding thing and shaming people, this is why we got a whole bunch of people who follow him.
Yep, 100%.
Because they're like, I don't want to be over here.
I also don't want to be on this other side.
And so here I am in the quote unquote middle, but it's not the middle.
It's very extreme.
It's not.
Liberals get nasty.
Nasty.
When Joe Biden won the election, I posted on Facebook, friends, be respectful to the Trump supporters.
Don't let their anger turn us into them.
And the comments were like, nope, F that.
Let them taste their medicine.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Look where it got us.
Each action has an evil and opposite reaction.
Constantly.
And they're just going to hold on to that.
And I'm also not saying be a doormat either, but you have to find a different way.
We have scolded ourselves into fascism.
We've told everyone you can't be friends with anyone who voted for him.
This is preposterous.
This is literally like.
They gambited us to be more divisive than them.
Yeah.
They Batman gambited us.
They put an entire structure out knowing that it would enrage us and make all of us go to one side, which by default is dividing us.
Who's the child now?
We're all being children in that.
It sucks, man.
It sucks.
I'm so tired of it.
What about you?
I am extremely opinionated about the way people who give birth in this country are treated on average in the medical system.
I see.
And that the medical system treats birth like a catastrophic event as opposed to the natural occurrence that it often can be.
Not always.
The main issue is intervention.
There are perceived problems in birth that are not actual problems.
Okay.
The biggest example being, have you ever heard someone say like, we have to induce because this is a big baby.
Okay.
And the science to back that up is that the tools we have to measure babies in utero have a margin of error of 10% on either side, which means we think this baby is eight pounds.
Baby could be nine, could be seven.
And so seven is not a big baby.
Eight is not even that big of a baby.
And they look at someone and they basically say, we don't think you can do this.
And we don't think this baby is going to come out of you safely.
And that is a complete hypothetical.
Okay.
There is no science to back that up.
But the medical system weaponizes ideas like that in order to get patients into what they perceive as a more controlled environment.
There we go.
Yeah.
Because they're trying to limit the amount of occurrence that could happen so that they could be held accountable for if something would go awry.
Yeah.
Birth contains a lot of unknowns.
There's a lot of things that can happen and that scares medical professionals.
Got it.
A surgical birth would be the safest option for them in their position.
It would be the most controlled.
It's not statistically the safest.
It is the most controlled environment.
Precisely.
Because we know what time the baby's being born and we can stitch this up.
We do surgeries really well.
Got it.
Okay.
Fair.
Yeah.
I could go into a whole episode about that.
Yeah.
That's not really what this is about.
Really, truly.
Yeah, yeah.
Last one.
Oh, this one's good for you.
So you have to give a 10-minute presentation on anything you want.
What are you choosing to talk about?
10?
10.
Okay, great.
That's easy.
Anything that I've said so far in my speaking career for the last two and a half years.
Like from the jump, I'd like to talk about non-dualism.
Oh boy.
Explain what that means.
Non-dualism is the belief that all of the things in this entire universe are not just interconnected.
They are ultimately of one source.
Even more confusing, they are not two things.
There is actually no separation.
If you say one, it's an implication that there's an end to the one somewhere.
So instead, it's the absence of a division, of a divide.
I've heard you explain this probably a dozen times.
And this is the first time I could put a visual around it, but tell me if this is correct or not.
If you say one thing, that there's an end to that thing.
Like the circle has an end point, which means that there's something else beyond the circle.
Precisely.
The other side of the, whatever's on the other side of the end of that one.
And so non-two-ness is that circle stretched out for infinity.
It's really nuts.
It's like the idea of infinite.
Constantly.
Think about the end of your consciousness right now.
And I don't mean your awakeness, not that consciousness, the awareness of where you are right now.
You're aware of the sounds going on and the smell and your thoughts and your memories and your dreams.
And when you go to sleep, you have dreams.
You're aware of that.
You are experiencing that.
The awareness of the thing that you smell.
The awareness of tasting, of hearing, of feeling.
Where's the end to that?
It's ongoing.
Metaphorically speaking, look at a clear sky.
Where's the end of that clear sky if you look straight up?
So why would you teach people about this?
What is it we can learn from it?
Great question.
Because it reminds us of the sameness that is within you and without.
That in every category you live your life, what you do is in accord with the way of order of this experience.
And to put more practically, you and I are no different.
You and the world are no different.
We're playing this game, this temporary separation, quote unquote.
But realistically, we are same.
And there is peace in that sameness.
Because the only time that there is not peace is when there is friction.
And that is an implication of two things.
So therefore, the removal of that friction is just a non-tuneness.
And that is peaceful.
And it is calm.
Which is to say that all of the conflict and all of the friction that we experience here on this earth, that is all a perception.
It is a result of the perception of separation.
Think of two ocean waves crashing into each other.
What happens when they crash?
They go right back into becoming water, ultimately.
Where are the waves?
Where do they go once they settle back into the ocean?
They're gone.
It's a temporary rising of something that's not separate.
Think of origami.
The piece of paper that's folded has the two wings on the sides.
What if you just took one side and said the left wing and the right wing, pun intended, are against each other?
And what happens when you just completely unwrinkle that, unfold that piece of paper?
You can't find that wing anywhere.
It's all one paper.
This entire universe is cosmic origami.
And I don't believe that because I intellectually chose it.
It washed over me one day when I was on the 101.
Out of nowhere.
And everything looked like that after that.
Still does now.
All of this just seems like everything in the room that I'm looking at.
The little folds of the cards we're pulling.
And my pencil.
And the cup on the table.
And you.
All of it.
It's a fold of the same piece of paper.
Essentially, roughly, are saying we are all one.
It's hard to say that.
The answer is yes.
And that's not literally true.
Metaphorically, it's like saying at midnight.
It's saying, oh, it's nighttime.
Correct.
Right here, right now.
Right where you are.
Is that the totality of it?
Is it also nighttime on the other side of the world?
No.
So then there's a temporary transition that you're experiencing here.
But the night itself is just an illusion.
And so is the day.
Because it's all perspective on a lot of other things happening.
Yeah.
But if you think about it like we are all one.
As long as you don't ask the question, what is that thing we are all one of?
But like it is essentially that same idea.
I wouldn't say it's essentially.
I would say that it is.
You have to speak that simple because that's the language of the day that we're living in.
It is most fitted to the time that we're in right now.
And sometimes what's more important is getting somebody to the next step instead of getting somebody to the destination.
Right.
And that's what saying we're all one is.
So in my life, on average, someone says that to me like, yeah, of course.
Yeah.
Totally understandable.
I get why you'd say that.
Because we live in a realm where that stuff matters.
We have all of these things.
And like we got to pay our taxes.
There's some dude on the island right now who has no idea he's supposed to be upset about politics.
But we're stressed the fuck out.
Because we set up a construct that affects us.
And at any moment, if any of us just moved somewhere else and left, it wouldn't be a thing.
So the construct of the time makes sense.
Nothing that I'm saying is war, for example, is like, oh, no big deal.
I'm not saying that either.
We do everything we can to try to get back to that sameness of that piece.
But we only have the war because that's the friction of the two sides.
Of the perception of things are two.
Yeah.
That you and I are so different and that we are at odds and that we can't possibly.
But that is just a perception.
It's a reflection and a projection of the perception.
And we go out into a world and we do that because our beliefs inform our actions.
The hippies had it right, man.
Oh, of course they had it right.
And they're not the first ones.
We all love.
Oh, no, of course not.
This is Greek mythology.
This is Indian mythology.
This is every single story that we've seen before and that we see now.
String theory is talking about this as well.
That's quantum mechanics.
String theory has a phrase that all things are made of physical matter.
And the physical matter when it's broken down are made up of these tiny vibrations.
And all things are this vibration.
Therefore, it's of this string.
And that's the metaphor they use for the sake of the conversation.
Which means, which they're implying is that since they're connected, quote unquote, nothing is independent on its own.
In Buddhism, we call that shunyata.
Nothing has an inherent existence.
Everything is dependent upon something else.
Because everything is, in and of itself, the threat.
So we see it constantly.
And we'll see it in the next study.
Whenever science has its day and we find some other thing to have a conversation about and we say, this is the one now,
it'll find the same exact point eventually and say, oh, you know what?
All of this is all tied together.
Well, I do believe that was longer than your 10 minutes.
You are allowed, sir.
So I'm going to have to cap you there.
Not if you give a 10-minute talk.
It's in this very moment.
All right.
Thank you all for listening.
Okay, bye.
Just kidding.
You should go ahead now as soon as you said it.
And as always, be kind to yourself.
Take a moment and send it to someone else who might need it.
That's the best way to spread these conversations to the people who need them the most.
And if you want to keep exploring with us, make sure to follow Beauty in the Break wherever you get your podcasts.
We'll see you next time.
Beauty in the Break is created and hosted by Foster Wilson and Cesar Cardona.
Our executive producer is Glenn Milley.
Original music by Cesar + the Clew.