In this collection of bonus episodes, we’re looking at the concept of Worldwork, which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whilst Worldwork can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with self. Across the course of these 4 bonus episodes, you will be hearing from 4 Worldworkers from across the globe, who have all used ORSC tools in very different ways tools to serve their wider communities.
In this episode, Katie Churchman is talking with Jess Sedler about she blended ORSC with performance and cabaret, in what she has categorized as her first ‘Ted Talk’ cabaret.
Jess is an ICF accredited systemic coach and facilitator in both private and not-for-profit sectors. Through her brand ‘Self and System’ she coaches leaders and teams, as well as family systems, to develop their relational intelligence and build strong and intentional communication skills. Jess originally trained as an actress which helps her work practically and holistically with clients in terms of their impact. As an actress, she worked in theatre in the UK and around Europe. She co-founded cabaret ensemble The Ruby Dolls and together, they have written, performed and produced five full-length cabaret theatre shows in four-part harmony to sold-out audiences across London, as well as critically acclaimed runs at the Edinburgh Festival.
In this collection of bonus episodes, we’re looking at the concept of Worldwork, which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whilst Worldwork can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with self. Across the course of these 4 bonus episodes, you will be hearing from 4 Worldworkers from across the globe, who have all used ORSC tools in very different ways tools to serve their wider communities.
In this episode, Katie Churchman is talking with Jess Sedler about she blended ORSC with performance and cabaret, in what she has categorized as her first ‘Ted Talk’ cabaret.
Jess is an ICF accredited systemic coach and facilitator in both private and not-for-profit sectors. Through her brand ‘Self and System’ she coaches leaders and teams, as well as family systems, to develop their relational intelligence and build strong and intentional communication skills. Jess originally trained as an actress which helps her work practically and holistically with clients in terms of their impact. As an actress, she worked in theatre in the UK and around Europe. She co-founded cabaret ensemble The Ruby Dolls and together, they have written, performed and produced five full-length cabaret theatre shows in four-part harmony to sold-out audiences across London, as well as critically acclaimed runs at the Edinburgh Festival.
Relationship Matters - World Work Bonus: Cabaret & Coaching
Key
KC – Katie Churchman
JS - Jess Sedler
[Intro music 00:00 – 00:07]
KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast World Works special. In this collection of bonus episodes we’re looking at the concept of World Work which embraces the idea that we are continuously impacting the world whether we are conscious of it or not. Whilst World Work can involve big acts of altruism and community spirit, it always starts with the self. Across the course of these four bonus episodes, you’ll be hearing from four world workers from across the globe, who’ve all used ORSC tools in very different ways to serve their wider communities. In this episode I’m talking with Jess Sedler about how she’s blended her background in performance and music with systems coaching to create what she has categorised as a ‘Ted Talk Cabaret’. Jess is a certified ORSC coach and facilitator, working in both private and non-for-profit sectors. Through her brand Self and System she coaches leaders and teams as well as family systems to develop their relationship intelligence and develop strong and intentional communication skills. Jess originally trained as an actress which helps her work practically and holistically with clients in terms of their impact. As an actress she worked in theatre in the UK and around Europe and co-funded cabaret ensemble The Ruby Dolls and together, they have written, performed and produced five full-length cabaret theatre shows in four-part harmony to sold-out audiences across London, as well as critically acclaimed runs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So, without further ado, I bring you the very talented Jess Sedler talking about blending the worlds of cabaret and systems coaching. Jess – welcome to the relationship matters podcast.
JS – Thank you! So nice to be here.
KC – Absolute joy to have you on the show. I think your world work project is perhaps one of the most creative I’ve ever come across. You call it a Tedx Cabaret and you blend your experience as a performer as a way of exploring relationships system work. So perhaps you could talk to the relationship matters listeners a little bit more about why you mix the world of ORSC and theatre, what inspired that?
JS – Yeah, thank you. It’s so lovely to be here, I listen religiously so it’s really nice to be a guest, thank you! Yeah I’m calling it, I kind of made up a genre like you said, Ted Talk Cabaret, and I should say up-front that it wasn’t an official Tedx talk, it’s a genre that I made up. And when I was thinking about the world work project that I wanted to do, it sort of seemed natural to go well, let’s combine my experience as an actress and a singer and as a writer with my experience as a trainer, so standing in front of large groups of people talking about the importance of relationships. And then, of course, as a newly qualified systems coach to bring that in too, partly so I could give and communicate some of the theory behind systems work but in a way that felt personal, in a way that felt communal. In a way that felt almost other worldly which is, I think, what happens when you attend a performance of a cabaret where there’s song and story – it takes you to a different place. You’re not just attending a lecture on systems work, you’re in a cabaret room with small tables and candles and the atmosphere that that evokes. And part of that was also about me revealing some of my personal story too.
KC – I love that you’re using the medium of theatre to explore systems work further because I’ve always felt like theatre gets branded as something for entertainment, but really good theatre – it teaches, it educates and it gives you an experience and I think it elevates the education because you’re in it. And you really do create that for your audience, right from the get-go. It was such a fun, innovative way of… I think delivering some of these quite tricky concepts, they’re not easy to get if you’re just reading it on paper.
JS – Yeah, and I wanted to blend a number of different elements. So, you know, part of it was an unapologetic here’s a three-step module that I’ve created for anybody to enhance the emotional intimacy in their relationship, so it was very- here’s the educational bit, here’s the Ted talk bit. But also here’s the camp king of cabaret vamp bit, here’s the folk tale that I’ve written that represents the story of me and my partner, I’d only just recently fallen in love with my fiancé, Adam, and I wanted to show the vulnerability of that and the personal journey that I’d come on. There were also interwoven recorded voices, because before the show, in preparation, I asked, I think it was 63 people the same question. I asked them when do you feel seen? And that then helped me pull out what emotional intimacy really is. And they gave me permission to play back some of those recordings. So, a kind of tapestry of different elements that hopefully, as you say, really do transport people and allow the systems, principals, that we know and love to land in a different way.
KC – I love the title Do You See. And you opened the show with that hilarious song I see you, I see you with my pointy witchy face.
[Clip played 05:37 – 06:04]
KC – Can you explain a bit more about this song? I died watching this.
JS – Your listeners can’t see the fact that I do actually have quite a pointy face [laughs] and that was what happened, I was in rehearsals with my wonderful theatre director Imogen Bond and, in order to create the show, we spoke a lot about intimacy, you know, we started with ourselves and we started with our relationships. In fact, a fellow ORSCer coached us on our third entity to be able to do this work. And I said to Imogen, when you look at me what do you see? And she said you can be quite pointy and I said what, I thought I was soft and cuddly and warm? And yes she’s partly referring to my rather pointy features which I do have, but she was really talking about how pointed I can be in my observations and in the way that I sometimes, am in all my relationships I suppose as many of us coaches are, we spot stuff and we point things out in a way that isn’t always wanted. So I played on that in that opening number and it’s called, yeah, The Witchy Cabaret Coach.
KC – [Laughs]. The Witchy Cabaret Coach – I need that on my business card. What a title.
[Clip played 07:22 – 08:03]
KC – It’s incredibly vulnerable the way you, because you weren’t just putting on a character, you were pretty much stepping into just all your parts of self, so how was that, to really embrace that in front of an audience?
JS – Yeah, it’s such a great question and you and I have talked a lot about this haven’t we, different parts of self and what that means when you’re an actress, but also just as a human being, it’s such a big part of ORSC. So yeah, The Witchy Cabaret Coach is a part of myself but I also open the show and explore what I call my empty lady, my inner poet and other parts. It was quite liberating, actually, to go there are these parts and many more. And I’m not having to just be one thing, I get to play with some of these parts and offer them out. And also in the show I was actively encouraging, with that kind of more educational voice, people to reflect on parts of themselves and the parts that they may want to bring into a relationship.
KC – I love that.
JS – It was great that I got to do it through song, as well.
KC – It definitely makes it lighter and I think song and laughter, comedy, they’re all great ways of, not diffusing tension but just making things sometimes a bit more accessible. Because parts of self can feel quite intense and intimidating and scary but you played with it and you showed us that there’s good and bad to all of these parts, and I’m sure it was refreshing not to have to be the nicey nice person, but to have these darker characters and these deeper parts of self too.
JS – Yeah, absolutely. I was, you know, there is a real earnest part of me, that aspect of self, that I’m really aware of! And although I, through the process along with Imogen my director and Ross Lorraine, the musical director on the show, I kept saying if you spot that, let’s encourage that to back off a little bit because I really wanted that lightness and sense of fun and sense of playfulness. Because actually I’m not sure that we can look at aspects of self without that sense of curiosity and playfulness. I wanted to be able to explore that within myself and in order for my audience, be able to explore that within themselves, in that spirit.
KC – So would you say that the cabaret sort of explored the three levels? Firstly that relationship with self and all the parts that show up, and then relationship with other and then the wider world?
JS – Yeah, definitely. In fact, I shall confess right now, we did the string exercise, thank you ORSC. We did do a version of the string exercise, it was delightful, every audience table, little cabaret table, had a little pot in the middle with a mini placard that I’d created with the song that everybody sang together communally at the end, a little protest song that they could wave their placard too, it was a really lovely moment! And also, a bunch of ribbons, silk ribbons, so I made it a lot more, I suppose, tactile, nicely tactile than just a bit of old string, but yeah we explored, as we would in a training room with a business team, we use the string exercise to look at the relationship with self between two hands and then people linked their ribbons with one another and then, before we knew it we had the whole floor of the cabaret space with little webs of ribbon as people connected to others that they’d not even met actually.
KC – That was such a beautiful moment of the show, and what I loved was then it wasn’t just you speaking outwards, it wasn’t just that standard keynote, one-way, it was a dialogue between you and the audience and they were very much a part of the show. And it made me think about how we could use these creative ways of doing the exercises in corporate so that they’re more light and fun and easy and more accessible.
JS – Maybe the answer is to sing more. I dunno.
KC – I always feel like life should be one big musical, I feel like it would be a lot more fun.
JS – Exactly. And it was an important, I knew that the climax of the show was what I’m calling, or what I called, a live intimacy experiment. So the show wasn’t just about intimacy and how to cultivate it but actually, the real question was could we do it between us here, tonight, as a group of strangers. So, I knew that that was where I had to get to, so the earlier I could involve people and invite them into the space and feel like an active part of the show the better, just like you would with a team. You know, the longer you talk as a trainer or a coach the more passive they’re likely to become. So, I’ve, my director and I really built in those stages to be able to get to that point where I place the microphone in the audience and ask them a question and invite them then to step up to the mic and answer it.
KC – A live intimacy experiment, what a wonderful description for it. And I’m sure you had to get so vulnerable with yourself then and know just when ego in an unhealthy way was showing up and I’m sure it was such a journey of self-discovery for you, as much as it was for the audience.
JS – It was you know. And most, I suppose, maybe us as coaches most of us would like to think we are self-aware and we’re aware of our inner processes but somehow writing a show, writing and putting it out there, takes it to a whole new level and I really had to look at ways in which I was not able to be intimate with others. You know, I’ll be vulnerable right now and say I fell in love really late in my life, I met my partner when I was 36, and for a long time wondered why that was, why was it so difficult for me to fall in love? And it was partly about that, some of the defences that I’d built up around myself and what it took to break them down. I told that story not directly, like I said earlier, I told it through a folk tale or a parable of these two creatures that I called the meerkat and the ostrich. And it’s revealed in the end, spoiler, spoiler alert, that it is me and Adam.
[Clip played 14:03 – 14:25]
JS – And so, I felt like that was another way I earnt the right to then invite the audience to then be intimate with me, but yeah, even that, putting the mic in the audience and going ok, don’t know what’s going to happen, maybe no one will come to the mic, how will I manage that? Even that was quite exposing.
[Clip played 14:43 – 15:10]
KC – So, explain that, what were you asking them when you gave them the mic?
JS – Yeah, so the show begins with this question - when do you feel seen? And we hear from some of the voices I’d asked and recorded, I give my response to that, and then by the end of the show after the folk tale we come to this question of well, are you willing to see? Do we know what it takes to feel seen and why we like that, how do we see other people more actively? I take them through these three steps that I created and then the question is who is it that you see right now and what might you want them to know. What do you see in another that you might want them to know. And people stepped up to the mic and either talked about people that they came with that they wanted to acknowledge in some way or people that weren’t in the room and it was very moving.
[Clip played 16:04 – 16:46]
KC – What’s really interesting, as well, was what you said around how in being vulnerable yourself you created trust and a space for the audience to be vulnerable too. It’s almost like a silent DTA of what’s acceptable, you set the bar. I’m just wondering if you’ve translated any of that into your coaching, that sort of level of intimacy going in to create a different space to work in.
JS – Good question. I think so and I think that’s a journey that I’m still on, I’m still building up my skill, I think, as a systems coach. I’m very much working as a systems coach with couples and with teams, but I’m still on that journey I think of entering that space as a real person. There’s still a voice inside my head which says I need to bring value, I need to, etc etc, and actually the more I can remind myself to be open and vulnerable as appropriate, right, because we still wanna create safety for the people we’re working with, then maybe I can be role modelling that for the sake of the team or the couple I’m with. Do you find that to, when you’re working with your clients?
KC – Yeah! When you said real person then it made me think about how, when I was acting, the listeners know I had a background like yourself, I had my acting voice and I remember a coach pointing it out to me. They were like just talk as Katie! And I wanted to do this Shakespeare voice and I wonder whether there’s a part of me as well that stills does that for coaching, you know. Now I’m coach Katie, not just Katie, I’m switching my voices quite literally into my acting voice.
JS – Yeah, and maybe we’re not even aware that we’re doing it! And I, just as a real practical example of that, I’m still learning to find language to describe systems work and ORSC principles that is my language. I can still spot moments where I feel like I’m quoting bits of the textbook or the… I’m an avid systems reader which is useful as I’m expanding my knowledge and my awareness but if I’m not careful large chunks will just come out as quoted and I have to work, actually quite consciously, to go alright, hang on a minute, what does it mean to me, what are my words for that, what’s a really straightforward example of that. I’m still working on that.
KC – and, I mean, that’s really meeting the system where it’s at and I mean that, that vulnerability piece you were talking about in the show, is being really vulnerable with well this is who I am, here we are.
JS – This is who I am, this is what this means to me and that was the joy of creating this show, it was such an opportunity to go ok, what does it really mean to me? You know, I’ve done the training, I’ve paid the money, I’ve done my hours, but actually, fundamentally I suppose in essence terms, what does it really mean and how can I speak from that place? I watched the show back, the footage of it, and it was only 18 months ago but I was struck by this woman I was watching who was so sure about how meaningful this stuff is. And it’s not that I don’t find it meaningful anymore but I guess the world’s changed quite a lot in 18 months and just watching 60 people in a room laughing and singing together brought a tear to my eye.
KC – Yeah, I mean the world definitely has changed a lot and I hope we can get back to those group settings again because there was something so powerful about the way you got everyone singing at the end. I mean, that’s no easy task! You really brought the room together through song.
JS – Yeah, aw, thank you! And it’s a, we know that it’s a powerful thing to do don’t we? But it’s also personally meaningful, I’ve grown up with singing and I’ve always felt most, in a way most connected to other people when I’ve been singing with them. And so, I knew like I was saying earlier, this climax of the intimacy experiment, people really showing their vulnerability and then the next step felt, the next natural step was let’s all then come together through song. So I taught people in the moment a couple of lines from this, what I was calling this protest song and yeah, we sang together. It was pretty rousing. And even in tune which is always impressive!
[Clip played 21:11 – 22:20]
KC – It is one of those things we used to do historically, it’s a part of being a human being and yet, we’ve become so sort of trapped by oh, it has to be good, I’m not a singer, that we’ve stopped singing together much at all. And I know from singing in a choir, gosh, it’s just such a wonderful way to lift yourself up, particularly through dark times. And I sometimes don’t talk to anyone when I’m at choir, we just sing! And I’m connected to these people through that joint voice that we create.
JS – It does remind me of that Brecht quote, ‘in the dark times, will there be singing?’. Yes, there will be singing about the dark times. I hope I’ve quoted that right but it just reminded me of that, that’s what we need right now, that’s one of the sadness of lockdown that we can’t get together and Zoom, whilst it’s brilliant in many ways, it hasn’t quite the technology to enable collective singing – not just yet anyway. But that’s one of the first things I’m going to be doing when restrictions are lifted.
KC – Yeah, talking about that last protest song, the line ‘there is music in the space between where we look, where we look and we are seen’. Can you talk more to that, Jess?
JS – Yeah, yeah, it’s one of the first lines that came to me. So, I wrote five original songs for the show and I guess it was back to the string exercise, it’s about those three principles isn’t it? It’s about what we co-create as we know as ORSCers and what can start to manifest in that space between us when we put our attention on one another in ways that are constructive. Yeah, ORSC taught me so much about the space between, to look there. I think we’re, in our individualistic society we’re often conditioned to look at ourselves and other people but we don’t only see these individual bodies. And no one, until I found ORSC, had invited me to look at what we, what happens between us, and that’s also where music lives too I think.
KC – I love that word music because it sounds active, alive, and sort of a dance, it’s not static and stuck in one way and that is relationship right? It changes moment to moment and we have to keep aware of it as coaches if we’re going to work with that system in front of us.
JS – Yeah, yeah exactly. Something is always emerging right?
KC – Yeah. I’m wondering, what was your biggest take away from the performance?
JS – Aw. My biggest take away. I was very touched by the people who were courageous enough to stand up at the mic and talk about someone they saw and what they saw. I also got an email from, I’d say he’s a colleague of mine, that came to the show, I was surprised he came to be honest, he’s not one for emotional intimacy I would have thought. Be careful what you assume about people, right? So he came and then he sent me this email telling me how touched he was by the show and that he’d also had a tough year, that his mum had passed away and his wife had been a huge help to him and a real support and he’d had a thank you card in his bag for about three months before the show. And he wanted to send this thank you card to his wife and he just couldn’t find the words, he didn’t know what to say, and he said that the show had enabled him to find the words, write the card, give it to his wife. Wow. Just for that I’m glad I put in the months of work. Because that’s, yeah, that’s really what I set out to do – to help people along that path of creating connection.
KC – Yeah you’re… that’s so powerful. And we so often feel alone in our struggles or our pain, our worries, and if I’ve learnt anything from coaching and your show, someone else out there is feeling the same as you. And the more we can talk up, the more we can connect and then not feel so alone in these issues, this human experience.
JS – Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly, the web of connection is always there and we just need to see it, see that space between us. But also, you know, I gave people three practical steps of things that they could do. It doesn’t need to feel interchangeable, there are concrete things we can do to build more intimate, more connected relationships and that’s why I’m a systems coach.
KC – Can you give us a top line summary of those three things?
JS – I sure can! They’re certainly not rocket science and they’re my version of principles that are already out there. In fact the first one really is borrowed from John Gottman’s work so everyone will know this. I call them turn toward, find right and play big. Turn toward, as we all know, rather than turn away, rather than wanting to kind of push away the discomfort, really being with it and really looking at it and going what will this teach me? And applying finding right rather than finding wrong, rather than blaming or judging, actually what can I acknowledge in myself, in the other, everyone is right to partially. And lastly, and I’m proud of this one, playing big. So, bringing different aspects of self to the relationship. Maybe not just bringing the usual part but what else might be useful here that the relationship might need or might benefit from? Turn toward, find right, play big.
KC – I love that. That needs to be on my wall, what a wonderful mantra to live by, and to coach by of course! I particularly love the play big because I think it is very easy to stay in your comfort zone and, you know, as a coach is that always serving our clients but just staying safe? Maybe bringing the lines raw and just creating, disruption is what’s needed here.
JS – Exactly and I was thinking about it in terms of personal relationships but absolutely, with our clients, I’m thinking of a difficult team that I’m working with at the moment, if I said to myself if I could play big in my next session that I have with them, what might that look like? It’s a really useful question.
KC – Yeah, gosh you have such a range of fearlessness and I’m just so intrigued to see where you’d like to take this work, this Ted Talk Cabaret, what’s next?
JS – Mmm. I’m editing a little trailer of the show for people to see, get a feel for it. And in a post Covid world, who knows? Maybe another iteration of it. I took it to a jazz club in London, that’s where it was performed originally, but really it could exist anywhere, it could go to people’s living rooms, people’s boardrooms, who knows?
KC – We will definitely be posting a link to the trailer in the show notes for anyone interested, thank you so much for bringing that gift to our community.
JS – Oh it was my pleasure, thank you for letting me talk about it! It’s a real treat, thank you.
KC – Thank you Jess and I so look forward to seeing where this takes you next.
JS – Yeah, me too! Thank you Katie.
KC – I want to say a big thanks to Jess Sedler for sharing her wonderfully creative World Work project which we hope has inspired you to think outside of the box in terms of how you can use these tools and concepts to impact your community. CRR global holds all students as change agents and trains them to be conscious of what impact they want to make in the world. We believe that everybody’s impact, whether conscious or unconscious, sends ripples out into the world. It’s up to all of us as World Workers to keep our communities safe and healthy. The World Work project is a key element in the ORSC certification journey. For more information about World Work and certification, do check out crrglobal.com and make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from to make sure you never miss an episode. From the living room to the board room, we believe Relationship Matters.