How to Keep Your Light in Dark Times with Lesley Fera

How do you stay authentic and maintain hope in uncertain times? Actress and writer Lesley Fera (Pretty Little Liars) joins Foster and Cesar to discuss finding play and creativity in adulthood, trusting the universe when life feels chaotic, and how grief transformed her relationship with writing. Lesley shares her journey of peeling back layers to return to her authentic self, the power of surrendering control, and how activism and joy can coexist. 

In this episode they explore: 

• Why returning to authenticity feels like returning to childhood
• The grief that pushed Lesley Fera back to writing after drifting away
• How to maintain hope and light when the world feels bleak
• Why trusting "the greatest good" changes everything

Lesley Fera: 

• IG: @mslesleyfera
• Lesley’s short film Grace on IG: @gracetheshortfilm
• Crowdfunding info for Grace 
• The sexy Pandora station that became famous in this episode: Native American Flute Radio

If this episode spoke to you, you will love How to Be a Rebel with Dr. Reid Wilson where Foster’s dad shares how he turned his urge to be a troublemaker into a force for good. 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 Arlene Thornton & Associates

Transcript

What's your go-to de-stress activity?

Am I gonna be honest?

I'm not gonna thrust with a full belly,

I'm not doing that?

I wrote my first pilot,

and then shortly thereafter, I lost my sister.

I heard my sister just say, "What are you doing?

You need to write."

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.

Hello, beloved.

I have a favor to ask of you.

This show in the last year has grown fast,

and we appreciate you being here with us.

I wanna ask, to help us grow this even more,

can you share this with two friends

that you know would enjoy this show?

It means the world to us to do that,

because we wanna share more and more good information

with each and every one of you.

All right, let's get back to it.

Welcome.

Welcome to Beauty and the Break.

Welcome, everyone, who's listening today.

Beloved, we are so glad you're here.

We have today a very special guest,

our dear friend, Lesley Fera.

She is an actress, writer, now director,

and you know her from Pretty Little Liars.

She was Mama Hastings on Pretty Little Liars.

But she is a dear friend of ours,

and I'm just so excited to share space with you

and get to chat with you today.

Thanks for being here.

- Same here.

I'm so happy to be here with you both.

Like, I welled up just hearing that.

Thank you.

- Tell us something beautiful in your world today.

- Oh, I really felt the presence of a dear friend

that just recently passed.

Like, she passed last week,

and I felt her presence so profoundly.

Just telling me because there was

a little minor setback this morning

and something creative that I'm doing,

and just hearing her voice saying,

"Everything's gonna be okay."

And knowing that it will be.

And knowing sometimes the things that you don't expect

that come out of the blue that happen,

there's a reason for everything.

And it's always leading to your greater good.

So that was the beautiful thing.

I just felt her presence wash over me.

- And here, I heard her voice so clear.

- Yeah.

- It was beautiful.

- I love that.

I find my grandfather passed away some years ago.

He and I were so similar,

and the rest of the family were like his wife,

my grandmother,

but he and I would have this bond

where we would say a sentence,

but then we'd look at each other

and just understand what we're really saying.

And then he passed away,

and that's the moment I decided to grow my hair out.

It's the moment I started, I got more calm in life.

He always had a calmer demeanor,

and he was a great speaker.

And it just felt like I became some of who he was

a little more.

And everywhere I go now,

I can feel his steadiness with me

that I did not have before that.

So I recognize what you're saying.

- I love that.

- Of feeling someone there.

- I believe that.

You talk about that a lot.

I've heard you say it to me before

about like the greatest, the greatest good.

Your greatest good, the greatest good for all.

How did you bring that into your life?

- The minute I just let something go

and let spirit handle it,

whatever that is to each person,

for me, it's, I feel like it's that spark of divine

within each of us.

Surrendering to that, I think,

brings about so much beauty.

- I saw recently an image of a cell up close

and as a human cell.

Oh gosh, we'll have to post it somewhere.

It was this, like a slice, a cut of the cell

and it was multicolored and all these moving parts

and like it looked like a garden

that you had just walked into.

If you try to think that you,

just you individually are having any like

control over this world.

This is the universe happening inside of you,

inside of every single one of your cells.

And I don't know,

I find that actually such a comforting feeling to have.

Like, oh, I can just let go of whatever's going on here

and let this boat take me where the waters are moving.

- Absolutely.

And you think about our DNA,

you think about just the inherited intelligence

that's in every one of those cells.

It's mind blowing to think about.

- It feels like a Russian doll of universes in us.

Like we have not getting too gross about this,

we have mites on our eyelashes.

They got their own stresses, their own problems.

They don't got taxes, but they got stresses nonetheless.

And then they live on our skin,

which has, it's a whole universe as well.

And then we have a whole universe in our own mind,

how we see things, the avenues and the roadways

and the highways that we think from point A to point B

and the houses that we live in,

which is our philosophies and our ideologies.

And then we actually have a universe in our friend circle

and then in our extended friend circle

and in our neighborhood.

And it just becomes more and more and more

of this Russian doll.

- Yeah, it's true.

- It's humbling to your point of what you're saying

is there's a reminder that you are somehow

not completely in control and a part of the entirety

of whatever it is that's in control.

- I like the Russian doll analogy

because I do feel, it almost feels like we're stripping away

also it's a stripping away of each layer

to get towards total authenticity in our lifetime, I think.

I feel like as I age,

I'm growing more and more authentically myself.

That has taken me time to get there.

And I'm still getting there and it's forever.

I was looking at old pictures recently

and I'm looking at them and going, wow,

I mean that, it seems like another lifetime ago.

Like there seems to be so many lifetimes within a lifetime.

That you've lived.

And I guess I have a combination of empathy for the person,

for that person that was searching

or the person that was wanting approval.

Just seeing every step of the aging process

and seeing different times in my life.

It feels like a Russian doll.

Like it feels like all these different life,

different parts of yourself.

- Do you ever, and same to you Foster,

do you ever, the older you get

and you start to feel this freeness

that it almost reminds you of a little bit of your childhood?

- Yeah.

- Yeah?

'Cause I feel that all the time.

- Like you're returning to yourself.

- Exactly, the returning.

I feel like that constantly these days in my life.

- Just this childlike enthusiasm that I try to have,

that I feel much more, like I'm working myself

towards where I initially started.

- Yeah.

- Just inherently that just inherent openness

and open heart and open mind and all of that.

- Yeah.

- Like trying to get back to that.

- The unstructuring of whatever we were given

in our teens and our 20s.

And clearly they help in a lot of ways.

But there's a freeness that we're,

that I feel like I'm getting back to.

- Absolutely.

- In my mind and my imagination and my hopes, my dreams.

- Watch a child.

Watch a child go about their day.

Like when they don't know you're watching them,

they're just like, oh, I'm just gonna pick this bark

off this tree and look at it and then I'm gonna spin.

And like, you know, like they're just living

by their intuitions.

I feel like I don't necessarily feel like that

because I think I tried to be an adult at such a young age.

I tried, I was praised for being very mature.

And I think that my mind, by the time I started having

memories like three, four years old,

my mind was already like trying to be a grownup

and trying to be older than I was

and trying to be the mature one.

So I don't have a lot of memories of that free child,

but I watched it in other kids.

I'm like, oh, that's the freedom

that I'm starting to feel now at this age.

- But I see you working under this year in particular.

You said at the top of this year,

the word for you was play.

And you wanted to find that, right?

- I feel like I'm learning a brand new.

And that's surrounding myself with people who play,

who really do it and give into it a little more.

It's like dancing like we were doing earlier

before you got here.

- Just moving around and being funky and weird.

- I like that you just said that it's coming

to a brand new because now you're not thinking,

oh, this is what play is supposed to look like.

I need to be doing this for play.

It's not, it's not anything, it's word play.

That's it.

There's no play this way, play that way.

Don't play, play.

- Yeah, so much of my life has been like,

take the thing I'm good at that I find fun

and then turn it into work.

And turn it into career, right?

Oh, I love acting.

And now I want to do it for my career.

Now it's work and now it's hard.

Tell us about like your incredible phenomenal actor

on stage and screen.

And you also started writing.

And by the time I met you, which was,

I think four years ago, three, four years ago,

I was directing your pilot in Conceivable.

We did a stage reading of it.

And so I came to, I met you.

You were writer to me.

Like you were Leslie Farrow, the writer, you know?

So tell us like how you got to that

and why you started writing.

- Well, I was writing, I feel like I've been a writer

my whole life 'cause I kept diaries and journals

and I constantly wrote and I wrote poetry

and I wrote short stories.

But I found this class.

I was taking acting courses at BGB with Riza Braman Garcia.

And she started this class with this teacher,

Alexa Alemani, who we both know,

Badpitch, writer's lab.

And this class, I started, I took her intensive course,

the first class, and I just sort of had this epiphany.

Like, oh, like this is what, this all makes sense to me.

And I think because I read copious scripts as an actor

and I'd already been writing

and I understood three-act structure as an actor.

And it just sort of clicked in my brain

and I'm like, I love this, more of this, please.

Started writing, but I sort of had one foot in,

one foot out because I was still acting.

Actively, I was still on pretty little liars.

I was still doing auditioning and doing all the things.

And I could secretly tell that Alexa was a little,

like you have ability, you gotta make it to sit,

like it was tough love in the classroom for me.

And I totally deserved it because I did have,

I didn't maybe complete any,

I just started, I was writing different things

and I didn't complete anything.

And something happened, I wrote my first pilot

and then shortly thereafter, I lost my sister.

And I was heading into doing another podcast

because we were doing podcasts at that point, Ned and I.

Something just struck me, I heard my sister just say,

"What are you doing?

"Like, you need to write.

"You need to do this.

"You need to just apply yourself and do this."

I felt, I heard it so loud and clear

and I just decided, I said, "No to the podcast."

And I explained why and I wrote "Inconceivable,"

the script that we ended up working together on.

And from that moment on, I was all in.

That was the turning point for me.

And I needed to see for myself, can I really do this?

And then from "Inconceivable" and just how that took off

and then one project after another and just came

and feeling so at home writing,

being able to utilize all parts of myself,

acting is wonderful.

But you are telling one aspect of a story

as that character that you're portraying, right?

But to create an entire universe, a whole world,

oh my gosh, it was so exciting to me.

And it still is thrilling and I still like

have such mad gratitude for the muse

and where the download comes from because it is divine.

I mean, I don't take any credit.

I just feel like we're conduits and we just create,

even as an actor, I feel that.

- In all things. - In all things creative, right?

- Just the conductor and the source comes through.

- And the source comes through.

- You gotta keep this clean to get more bandwidth.

- Exactly. - If you can't,

like a radio itself, you know?

- Of course.

So I'm grateful every time I get my butt in the chair

and can write.

But I've been having a nice balance of both,

which is good.

Just when I think I'm not gonna act anymore,

a project comes my way and or a director will say,

I really want you to do, I'm like, really?

No, I don't think so.

And then I changed my mind.

I'm like, okay, yeah, I probably need to keep both muscles

alive and well and both sort of feed each other now.

- I love that you made the point

about creating a whole universe.

I wrote, I've written three pilots

and I know that if you get one picked up,

then it's a whole different story.

I just went ahead and wrote two episode two

for two of the pilots.

So one pilot, one pilot, two, I was like,

let me just write the other episode

just because I love the universe building.

- That is so great.

- I love it.

- That's really smart too.

- I just, 'cause I wanted to just feel that again.

When I was a kid, I had action figures

and I would take like two or three of them.

But then, because I didn't want the other action figures

to feel bad, I would go back to the room

and grab all the rest of them,

even if they weren't even in the scene, right?

- Aw, Caesar.

- I know, I know.

- That is so sweet.

I just picture that as Caesar doing that.

I love that.

- And I look back on it now and I realize

it wasn't the, it was the act of planning of like,

this will happen, these two guys,

and then this guy's gonna lose.

He'll read a message on his shirt

and it'll activate his like more stronger version.

But then he'll cheat and then this guy

who's waiting behind the tables in the coming,

I had the whole thing ready.

- I love that.

- And then I felt the same exact feeling

when I started writing scripts.

- Yeah.

- With our producer, Glenn Milley.

And so, I felt the same exact thing.

And this kind of goes right back to the childhood thing again,

where you're returning home

because I'm feeling the same feelings that I felt then

when I do script writing or writing now, in that sense.

- I film most at home writing.

And I don't have to wear any makeup

and I can wear my pajamas and all the things.

But yeah, no, it just, you return

to your pure imagination source in writing.

Acting is a different muscle,

but you do utilize your creativity and your imagination.

But in writing, anything goes and you can,

I don't just write.

I blew sky first and I just talk about character

and I talk about whatever scenes come first to me

and come to my brain and come to the forefront

and then just write and then that begets something else.

And it's world building.

- Explain blue sky.

- Thanks.

- Oh, blue sky, for me, it's just,

it's taking a blank page.

Like I usually just do it in notes

or I do it in final draft.

But you just spit out all your ideas.

I mean, like any idea, you download it

and you put it on that page.

And you're not writing, per se, lines or action

or scene headings or anything like that.

It's just talking about the story and building the story

and building the characters.

And I'll spend like a paragraph on each character

and then I'll go and talk about the scene

and how the story begins and how it ends,

how I see the ending and how just whatever comes to my brain,

there's no right or wrong.

There's nothing that's not useful.

And then in final draft, I will just go start writing headings

and knowing where I want it to go.

And then I'll go back and write the scenes

or I'll just go with the scene that comes first to me.

And I'll write out of order.

I've learned not to be linear about it

and just trust the imagination and where it takes me.

- So I sort of feel like when you are channeling source

or spirit or whatever you wanna call it through creativity,

I've had this similar experience

when especially with writing poetry

and it's kind of when you find yourself in the flow state

and with acting too, when I've had that experience too

when you just sort of leave your body

and you're like, I don't know how that scene went

'cause I can't even remember it.

That is to me really being tapped in

and it's hard to get there.

How do you get there?

Do you have any kind of anything you do for your body,

for your spirit, for your soul to like get into a place

where you can access that?

- I mean, for me, it's always a physical thing.

Like when I hike, there's so many ideas

that come my way during that

and I'll just whip out my audio notes

and I'll write full scenes on a hike

and or they come to me like the dialogue,

dialogue really comes to me on a hike.

And so I'll write complete scene

or I'll just do them into my phone and to the audio notes.

Audio notes is my friend.

Like I just put every idea in audio notes

and then I, and now that you know, it's transcribed,

you can just transfer it.

- Search it by word, search it by, it's everything.

- Oh, it's heaven.

So I find it in activity, driving.

Driving is where I get a lot of ideas, showering.

- Okay, yes.

- It's crazy.

- So I was gonna get to that point out.

- Any secondary activity for me.

- First thing first,

30 Rock has this whole episode called the shower principle.

Do you know the episode?

Do you know the episode?

Here's like they're talking about like,

all great ideas come in showers, like so.

And he's like, he's trying to do all the monotonous things

that we, that replicate showering,

like he was golf putting and like driving

and like doing the things that our natural motor skills

take on.

So then we're freed up to be imaginative.

I, maybe I shouldn't even say this on the air

'cause somebody might take the invention.

I'm watching you if you're listening in here.

There's, I've always wanted to do like a,

what do you call it, waterproof pen

that's synced to like your phone or something like that.

So you take the pen and you write the idea

on the wall in the shower.

- Oh my gosh.

- And it'll mimic the R you made and whatnot.

And then it'll tie itself to the notepad.

- Or like a notepad that can get wet,

like something and you have a pen in the shower

and can write down ideas.

Oh my gosh.

- 'Cause my ideas always come to me when I'm showering.

Tons of them.

I come out and I have to remember the five, six, seven of them

from doing this.

It's not monotonous,

but this ritualistic habitual thing

that your body and mind is so used to doing.

- And it's also water and it's also cleansing.

And there's like a purification that's happening.

- You're washing off the old, getting the fresh, the new.

- And I have ADHD.

So I'm like, I think any secondary thing where I'm,

I'm just, everything in my body is focused on that action.

Freezes up my brain for whatever reason.

It just allows it to thrive.

I've written whole songs on the highway on the 405

in traffic.

And I'm like, the whole, the lyrics are done.

You mentioned twice about hearing the voice

of somebody who's passed away.

Tell me about spirit.

- Well, it's loving.

It's all love.

And sometimes it just full fronts me.

You know, sometimes I don't know about you guys,

but it'll just hit me in the most unexpected ways,

unexpected moments.

There was a moment a couple of weeks ago

where I just felt my sister so profoundly.

Like I was just, it was late at night.

I was watching some, I think I was watching the pit

or something and it just was this rush of,

I just felt her and had this conversation with her.

And it was lovely.

It's always so loving.

My godmother presents herself.

It's so funny.

People present themselves in different ways.

Like my godmother lights flash

and I know it's my godmother.

And then I hear her voice.

It's just a conversation.

I hear her voice in my head and I talk aloud.

- In the living space, the lights flash?

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- And I know it's her.

And then my father, I just always find a black feather

and he communicates through that.

And I know it's him.

Evelyn also, I find a penny.

I find a penny in odd places,

like on the floor and then I know it's her just saying,

"Hello, it's a weird thing, but I know it's her."

- Evelyn is your sister?

- My godmother.

- Evelyn is your godmother.

- Yeah.

- Got it, okay.

- My sister is, she's just a part of me.

I can't describe it.

She's just with me.

I don't feel like it's any accident

that I transitioned into writing

because that was what she wanted to do.

She desperately wanted to be.

That was what she went to school for.

She was in production.

She was in writing.

She wanted to be a director.

She wanted to do all of that.

But she was gravely disabled with mental illness

and couldn't do that.

And so I feel like I'm doing that for both of us.

Like it's an extension.

And she's facilitated that

and is helping with that in a weird way.

And my mother, I feel too,

everyone is so distinct and their voices are clear

and it's pure love.

And it makes me realize that there's such a thin veil.

It's such a thin veil.

And we don't really fully comprehend how often.

- Thank you for sharing that.

What's the project right now that you're working on?

- Oh, the project I'm working on right now

is a short film called Grace.

That I'll be shooting in April.

It's a project very near and dear to my heart.

It's dedicated to my sister.

And it's an homage to a dear friend's daughter, Grace,

who has Down syndrome,

who I've just known all her life and I adore her.

They were actually just in town visiting.

- Oh yeah, we met them.

- Yeah. - We went to try.

- Yeah, and it's party. - We met them.

That's right. - That's right.

My husband just had his 60th birthday bash

and they were there and Foster and Caesar were there too.

And I just trying to put something positive

out there in the world.

It's about a middle-aged woman with Down syndrome

who discovers her mother has passed away

and she embarks on this quest

to go attend the funeral in Los Angeles.

And she meets this unlikely companion along the way.

And they learn from each other.

- That's beautiful. - And just my little effort

to put something positive out there in the world.

- You're wonderful.

- And you're directing for the first time.

- I'm directing for the first time.

- Yeah, how do you feel about that?

- I'm excited.

I really am.

I love actors and I love working with them

and I've done some directing in theater

but this is all new territory.

And I am very humble.

I know that I have a lot to learn

and that I'm excited to learn it

and I'm excited to work with them.

And I have the best cast ever.

- Oh my God, yes, you have amazing cast.

- I mean, just beautiful humans and beautiful actors.

I feel incredibly blessed.

- Fantastic.

When it comes out, we will talk about it on the show.

- Yeah, we'll put a link in the show notes as well

to your fundraising efforts for the film.

- Thank you.

- Will you tell us a little bit about a barrier

in your life that you have broken through

that you feel like you might be on the other side of

you can share with us?

- I think for one, I think being a writer,

when I was coming up, there weren't a lot of female writers

when I was first doing this.

It seems like there's more now

and there were always some great women writers

but I think it was getting rid of that mindset

that I don't know why, I think 'cause it's predominantly men

and being an actor in these rooms

that have been filled with men as producers

and men as directors and men, men, men, men.

And God bless men.

But I think that was one of the barriers,

just kind of getting that out of my mindset

and going, I can do this.

Like, I know I'm a woman of a certain age

and I'm coming to this kind of late, but I don't care.

And I feel ageless.

I feel younger now than I did in my 30s.

And so it's one of those things,

like I just had to get past that to be free and right.

- Was there something that made you just decide to just,

you know what, ripping this band-aid offward, relieving?

- I think testing the water,

like putting inconceivable out there.

Like putting my first script out there in the world

and how it was met and going, oh, I can do this.

And I'm not saying that that should always be the barometer.

You shouldn't base your creativity

on what other people say or think about your work.

- But we do it naturally.

- But I tested the water.

I'm like, I'm gonna enter some contests

and I'm gonna just put this out there

'cause I'm throwing spaghetti at the wall.

I have no idea how this is gonna be received.

I don't know if I've even meant to do this,

if I'm any good at writing.

And putting it out there

and having that reflected back to me, it meant so much.

It was like guiding me.

It was part of staying on that path.

It was just, oh, okay, I think I can do this.

I wanna do more of this.

And I was really fortunate with that first project

that it got the attention that it got.

That was just corroboration.

Oh, I'm on the right path.

- Right, right.

- And it was so uniquely your story, your voice,

your perspective.

I think that was what drew me to the project

'cause I came on board to just,

we just did a reading of it, a stage reading of it.

And I came on board to direct it.

When I read that script, I was like,

oh, shit, this is like the story of like me and my people,

the women around me, right?

That struggle with infertility

and what it means to be a mother or to be motherly.

I've read a bunch of scripts.

I've read tons of scripts.

And there just wasn't anything that hit me quite like that.

It was thrilling to be a part of it and to work with you.

But like your voice is so clear.

It's so clearly you.

And I know we're just gonna,

we're gonna give credit to source and spirit, right?

Because it's all coming through you,

but you have a very clean vessel.

You're very available to speak those words out into the world.

And they needed to be spoken and people needed to hear them.

- I appreciate that.

Yeah, I mean, you, working with Foster on that,

on that stage reading of this, of the script was so divine

because she just understood the project so profoundly.

You kind of got everything that I intended.

And then the way she highlighted moments

and directed moments,

it was just everything I had in my head.

Everything I had in my head you just brought out.

And it was just complete trust.

And we had a huge fun casting the whole thing.

- We were like little school kids casting,

play, talk about play.

- Talk about play.

- It was play.

- It was good.

- Oh, you know who we could get?

Oh, 'cause you have a deep well of actors

and your roster and so do I.

Oh, we could get this person.

Oh, they would love to do it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like people so graciously said,

yes to you, but we had fun with that.

It was late night texting back and forth.

- But it was all improv.

It was like, yes, and, yes, and, yes, and this.

And we, it just kept, you know,

to see it live, to see the story live

and people respond to it and laugh and cry and all the things.

It was one of the most thrilling moments of my life,

truly without a doubt.

- That was really good.

It was really nice that I finally met Ned, your husband,

after the performance that night,

we went out to the, whatever, the bar nearby.

And he was talking about,

he was like so thrilled to meet me

because of how you and I had been like little kids

with casting this and it was just like,

oh, all these people, like we're just meant to be friends.

Like we're just meant to play together.

- I think he was blown away by how you handled the whole piece.

I think he, you know, protective husband.

He's like, how is this gonna go?

You know, not knowing and,

but hearing the stories and knowing

how positive experience it was for me.

And, but then seeing it, I think he was just so grateful.

How you, how you brought it to life.

- No, thanks.

Well, he's a champion of your work.

He is just, he is like proud of you.

- Constanial, beaming, chest out, head up,

chest, chin up, just ready.

- And he was just, yeah, he is just,

every time we all hang out, he's just so,

it's not just complimentary.

He's thrilled by your work.

- It's like in his bones.

- Yeah, and he can't, he's just,

it's so endearing and so, it's adorable.

Yeah.

- He's my champion.

We're each other's champions.

He's such a gifted artist in every way.

And I feel very blessed to have that kind of partner.

Like you, I mean, you have in each other,

which is that best friend, lover, champion.

It's the best.

- I like the point that you made of foster,

her ability to grab information that some,

takes some people longer to get,

or she gets it intuitively.

- Oh, so intuitive.

- Multiple, multiple, handfuls upon handfuls of time,

but she will just say something out loud.

I'm like, I don't know why we do that.

And then I would do the thing and I get five steps in.

I go, oh, oh, I see she saw it from the beginning already.

I see, I see.

- Yeah.

- The minutia that she caught,

that she recognized in the script, the moments,

and yeah, she was so intuitive.

- That's fascinating.

- I have a question for you.

- Okay.

- Well, let's pull a card and then I'll ask this one.

- Pull a card, should I put one?

- So yes, we're gonna try letting our cards speak to you.

So you can put any card you like.

- Well, this is, what's your go-to de-stress activity?

- Oh, that's good.

- Oh, that's good.

- Great.

- All right. How do you de-stress

- Am I going to be honest or...

- Knock it out.

Beauty and the break that story.

- Oh, loving my husband.

That's one of them.

- Yes, there we go.

Come on.

- That would be a big way.

- What time of day, Lesley?

Are we talking about here?

- Afternoon delight.

- Afternoon, I'm the same way.

- I'm the same way.

- Same.

- You know, at night, I'm just like,

I want to, you know, go to bed.

But yeah, no.

- Same.

At nighttime, we're ready to go to sleep.

- Oh yeah.

- And like, there's been multiple times,

we were like, how about at night tonight?

And they were like, okay, cool.

After dinner.

(laughing)

- No.

- Not happening.

Not happening after dinner.

I'm tired.

- It's just, no.

- I'm full, I'm exhausted.

I'm not gonna thrust with a full belly.

I'm not doing that.

(laughing)

I'm not doing that.

- No, it is the perfect time.

And then it's really kind of, we make,

it was like an event.

You know, we just put on some, you know,

it's a whole thing.

- Yep.

- Can't help.

- Do you plan or do you use it spontaneous?

- I didn't schedule it.

- Do you like schedule it?

- Like an iPhone calendar?

- No, we don't.

It's a combination.

It's a combination.

But we do, I mean, we do make it,

yeah, we make it kind of a, I don't know.

Like it's a special time, you know?

Like, but it's not, you know,

there are spontaneous movements too.

But yes.

Yeah, we just wanna like, I don't know,

it's a sacred time.

We make it a sacred planned time.

- We have an artist that we play every time on the speaker.

- Every time.

- Yeah, exactly, right?

- We do too.

- If I play that artist on the speaker,

I'm sure my Apple HomePod's like, oh, here we go.

Here we go.

- Sometimes that music's playing,

I'm getting out of the shower.

I'm like, are we doing that?

I just know.

- Is this a time?

- Do I need to shave someone?

- It's a music that we never,

I mean, we don't really listen to in life.

- Like, on the--

- It's metal, isn't it?

It's heavy metal.

It's heavy metal, isn't it?

It's heavy metal, okay.

- No, do you wanna know?

- Yes.

- Yes, you wanna share?

- Of course.

- I'm just kidding.

(laughing)

- That's what I want.

- What is the, like the wind instrument?

Like the--

- Do a lot of those, the soon?

- Oh gosh, what's the--

- A flute?

- Oh, what is the--

- Describe it again with your hands, 'cause you're--

- Like, it's a very Native American sound.

- Oh, that wooden flute?

- The wooden flute.

- Yes, okay, okay.

- And there's a station on Pandora.

It's a wooden flute.

It's a station on Pandora that we love.

- I'm ready for Ned to hear this.

- And it's just very, it's just sensual and like, mm.

- Okay, okay.

- Yeah, so cool.

- I'm ready for Ned to hear this.

Don't tell him that you're talking about this on me.

(laughing)

- Everyone take notes.

- But it's so, it's just very, mm.

- Yeah.

- We're gonna link that in the show notes.

- Yes, could you share that please?

Is that right?

- Yes, it's called Pandora's.

- 'Cause clearly the producer,

Glenn wants it over here.

- Send you the station.

- And if Pandora would like to sponsor this show,

we would be happy to watch.

- Yeah, thanks, yeah, probably.

- Shout out to Pandora.

- Yeah.

- Ooh, boy, I just had a bad one just now.

Pandora's.

- Box.

- Yep, come on, we're gonna move right on with that one.

Let's move right on with that one.

- Okay, de-stressing, great.

I mean, it is the greatest de-stresser, for sure.

- Yeah, you were quite stressed the other day,

and then you were not stressed.

- That's true, that is true.

(laughing)

- I said to him, I said, I forget,

I forget that I do enjoy this.

I just like forget, because I'm so in my head

about all the million things I have going on,

and then if I do stop, I'm like, oh yeah.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, back in my body again, fantastic.

- Good question, Paul.

- Yeah, great question, Paul.

- Wasn't it?

- Yeah, perfect.

- Magic in these cards.

- I have one more question for you.

So to me, you are a very bright light in this world,

and every time I interact with you,

I'm so left feeling joyful,

and I know you also feel very deeply

about the state of the world,

and I wanna know, selfishly for me,

how do you maintain your light?

- You took my question.

(laughing)

- Great minds.

- That's a great question.

I think just appreciating all the love in my life,

having Ned, my dogs, trying to stay positive

in the midst of the chaotic stuff

that's happening in the world and the ugliness,

and knowing that, trusting that there's so much good

in this world and that we will get our act together

and these people will be excised like disease

out of the body, it will happen.

It may take some time.

- Yeah.

- But trusting and still appreciating life

and all the goodness and all the good people in my world

and in my orbit, and that I'm healthy,

that I can create, that I can be an activist,

that I can speak up, I think now more than ever

we have to speak up.

I think we have to rise up and be vocal

about what's happening, and because it's sadly,

I think it's becoming, there's a weird normality

that's starting to happen that is just,

I think unacceptable.

I don't think it can become normalized,

but at the same time, I think you have to just keep

your light shining, keep vibrationally sound.

I meditate, I try to do something active every day

to get my body flowing and stay positive,

but there's moments, I mean, it's just been

an environment lately in the world,

but I always feel like we'll get our act together.

I just have to trust that and know that we'll get past this.

I have to, I have to believe that.

- History shows us over time that things turn over

and that the better prevails and that people

that we think should get their day, get their day.

We've seen it time and time again in history,

and then just from a natural standpoint,

nature does best the more diverse it gets.

So nature by default has a liberal and progressive bias,

and it's our job to lean into that

and just keep moving forward as best as we can.

- Yeah, and when the powers of be are trying to remove that

and trying to hamper that, that inevitability

of the diversity and of the collective power

and to move towards goodness,

and they're trying to squash that,

we need to band together and work together to make good

happen.

I believe the power of numbers of people

just working together.

I mean, Minnesota, my gosh, I look at Minnesota

as this shining beacon of hope

because how they've been able to withstand the intolerable

and show us how it's done, it's been a great lesson.

- Yeah, I think it reminds me of the Russian Dolls again

where it's like, there's this, the world view

is so bleak, and yet we can also have like beautiful relationships

on an individual level, and with the people

that are in our immediate circles,

we have love and faith and hope,

and both of those can be true at the same time,

and they don't have to completely be overwhelmed

by the thoughts of the state of the world

that is so bleak on this, in that outer Russian doll,

I guess it's like, we can still have the love right here

that's here in my own particular world.

I, at this moment, am safe, and I can also be outraged

for the people who are not, and also I'm still safe,

and I'm surrounded by lovely people whom I love,

and I just see you balancing that so well.

- Ned and I have our moments, certainly where we're concerned,

but, and this election coming up, we're concerned,

and I think we all should be, and hopefully,

we have a free and fair election.

That is the most important thing

in how they're trying to take away the vote,

a little bit of a chip at a time,

it's really hard to witness and see,

but I do believe in the power of numbers,

I do believe that people are gonna fight for the right

to vote and get in those lines, and people will be heard.

- I'm like, couldn't I agree enough?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Leslie, thank you so much for being here with us today.

You're just a delight, you're just a delight,

we love you. - You're the best.

- We love you too. - Thank you.

- You're the absolute best.

- Cut!

- We gotta sign off, don't we?

(laughing)

- Leave that in, leave that in.

- I agree.

- Really?

- Yes.

(upbeat music)

- If this episode spoke to you, 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 and the Break

wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll see you next time.

- Beauty and the Break is created and hosted

by Foster Wilson and Cesar Cardona.

Our executive producer is Glenn Milley,

original music by Cesar + the Clew