Relationships as Mirrors: Jamie on Perspective, Self-Discovery & Learning Without Limits

Beyond achievements, Jamie is accepting, passionate, and curious. She is currently pursuing her master's degree in Psychology with a focus on Spirituality, Mind, and Body at Teachers College, Columbia University. In this episode, Jamie shares how growing up in a self-directed, Sudbury-style school shaped their love of learning, openness to different perspectives, and fascination with people's stories.

Together, we explore the power of curiosity, how perspective can help us navigate anxiety and uncertainty, and why relationships often serve as mirrors for self-discovery and growth. Jamie reflects on the role of conflict in deepening connection, questions the labels we place on ourselves and our relationships, and shares why acceptance and nonjudgment are essential to truly knowing another person.

This conversation is an invitation to stay curious, embrace different perspectives, and approach both yourself and others with greater openness and understanding.

Transcript

Jamie & Rach Audio 0:00

Hello, everyone. Welcome to "Unmasked." So glad you're listening, as always. Let's all take one minute to notice where you are. Whatever you're doing, notice it. What do you see? What do you hear? Whether you're walking, driving, sitting, take three intentional deep breaths And then we all get the honor to speak with Jamie Peterson today. Hello, hello. Hi, Jamie. How are you doing? Doing pretty well. Had a good breakfast this morning, so... Setting yourself up for the day. I love it. as I asked you in your email that you received from me, we always start the show by unpacking the three words that you use to describe yourself, which I know is difficult. Yeah. To put myself in a box of three words, I was like, "Whoa." Too confining. Jamie's three words are accepting, passionate, and curious. Tell us more when I was younger, I was in this funky little school with a bunch of people, all mixed ages. And I found myself, like, kind of fitting into this pattern of a bunch of people coming up to me, talking to me, telling me about their lives and about how they functioned, and just having these, like, really long, cool conversations about it. And they felt very free to do so, and I think that's because I was not very judgmental of them. I was always curious about how their stories unfolded and who they were and how that fit into it, which also kind of goes into my passion in a lot of ways of, like, people and their stories and how they work in the world. but I've always felt, very curious and open about what they were saying, rather than being like, "Oh, that doesn't work. That doesn't fit into how you're supposed to be," or something like that. So that kind of followed me throughout my life, and I was like, "Maybe I'm kind of good at this. maybe people tell me what they enjoy about themselves or what they're curious about in the world, and they are free to do so because I can be accepting of them." And that's... I was like, "Maybe I should be a therapist," and that was a whole thing. So that led me a lot to where I am now. that had a good through line of me and my life and fit into, so many other aspects of myself, so I think those words fit together well. And passionate just 'cause, I don't know, also my school's, an alternative education. I don't know if we've ever talked about that fully. Maybe on the first day we met. Yeah. That's what I remember too. But yeah, I feel like my curiosity was never squashed, by "Oh, you're supposed to learn this way or that way, and these are how you're supposed to do things." that I think led me to be a lot more curious in general, and I feel like I've learned from the world more than I've learned from how the world is talked about as well. It's so weird hearing my voice in the headphones, I will say. I'm like, "Whoa." I know. It throws you off a bit. It does. I'm like, "Whoa." You're doing fantastic. I know The word curious was challenging. Yeah. You wanted to use fascinating. I did. Will you tell us why it was difficult to define your version of curiosity and fascination? Yeah, initially I wanted to use fascinating because I had my unique upbringing, and I've got a lot of funky ways of going about the world, and I think that's, that is what made me maybe an interesting person for other people. And that's why I wanted to use fascinating. But then I was like, "No, I wanna describe myself as I am." me to the world, rather than the world to me, which is why I chose curious as a different way of g- looking at that. Like, it's me to the world. I'm fascinated with the world, and that maybe makes me a little fascinating too. But yeah. Definitely. I think curiosity does that. You are very fascinating as an individual. Every time I'm with you, some topic that feels so random but so awesome- comes up. Do you have a random fun fact that you just love? Oh my God. yesterday I was watching a video about eels, because very little is known about how they reproduce and how there are eels in the world. not a lot of people know how eels work. I don't. Oh my God, this video was crazy. It... I don't know if we... I might really wanna go into it. But it talked about how the first few stages of eels, they f- they categorized, the, oh, what's it called? The larva stage of the eel. They classified that as a different species completely. They didn't even know it was an eel or a larva stage of an eel. They thought it was a larva stage of a different fish. Then they realized that these eels went through different stages and traveled from the ocean to freshwater, like ponds and streams, to develop their, second and third stages before they go to their fourth stage and they go back to the ocean And then that's the stage where their, like, reproductive parts develop, and they do some kind of process that they don't even know. They've never found, I think they've never... I forget if it, they never found, a female reproductive eel, but they've only found male eel parts. Very odd. So they have no clue how they reproduce, but then all of a sudden there is, eel eggs, and then this process starts again where they, traverse lands and go into common areas. It's a very funky situation. When you learn about these things, for example, eels Do you tend to find 'Cause I know you're very spiritual as well. We're in the Spirit, Mind, Body program, and psychology related Do you tend to relate that to your own life and find these spiritual messages in so many of the things that you're curious about? Yeah. I think what's really cool about learning anything is it's a metaphor in a way, and there's these forms when it comes to knowledge that can apply to other concepts. you can take the form and apply it to anything and say, "Wow, how does that feel in this scenario? How does that feel in this scenario?" And there's just so many different ways you can look at... Like, there's so many forms that can be applied to so many scenarios, and then context like changes even how you see the form and it's just oh, it's so cool. I can see your passion, your curiosity, all these things coming through just in the way that you speak It's reminding me of something you rose your hand and said in one of the first days of class about perspective. And the ability to have these different perspectives in life, and You have a tattoo, right? I do. My world tattoo. For those who are listening, because unfortunately they most likely can't see it. They can't see it 'cause I'm not doing video. Will you tell us what your tattoo looks like and more about what it represents? Yeah. So it's supposed to be like a spiral of arrows all pointing outwards, and there's supposed to be, like, an infinite amount of arrows, or it signifies that, even though obviously there's You can't put an infinite amount of arrows as a tattoo. But each arrow in this spiral that's facing outwards represents a different perspective or different worldview that you can apply to any scenario that you're in. And every time that... I wanted to get this tattoo 'cause I just wanted to remember that there are different ways to look at any scenario, 'cause sometimes I feel like in life we get stuck, and we feel, "Oh, no, this is terrible," or, "Oh, no, I can't deal with this," or, Difficult scenarios where we feel like we can't free ourselves from that. Or like anxiety, if we get really hyper-focused on something. But this reminder is actually, yes, that is valid that it is that way, but it's also an infinite amount of other ways, that you could possibly choose if you just remember. And it also takes practice, I think. that's the big thing that I've been learning, even in this program, is the awareness is enough to get you to look at it, but you have to still figure out, "Okay, now that there's an infinite amount of ways to look at it, how do I choose some? What do they look like?" And that also, applies to the everything's a metaphor in a way. Like, each of those forms, each of the ways you can apply them can be different ways of looking at different scenarios, and you can un- you can apply them and understand, "Okay, what if I try this way that I thought of?" I feel like I'm gonna give an example 'cause I Please. It's hard to talk so theoretically. But, I, for the wellness workshop course, I did my workshop on perspective, and one of the practices that I gave to people in the first... we did like an opening practice, and I said to them, "I want you to look at an object in your space," like a pen or maybe I have this, sparkling green tea thing in front of me, "and write down five words that describes it." So maybe I would say it's metallic, and it's cylindrical, and it's upright, and it holds sparkling green tea. And I don't know, it's from Trader Joe's. And then after that, to write five completely different things about it. the idea that you write five things and then you have to com- just think of completely different things. there are two different pineapples on it. Maybe there's three. No, there's two different pineapples on it. it came from probably a factory of some sort. It's sitting on top of a table that's in front of me, and it's like 8.5, 8.45 fluid ounces. I don't know. That's just, a very simple example, but it could be like someone's yelling at you, and you could say, "Oh, this person's so rude. They're yelling at me," or, "This person had a really hard day probably. They're upset about something that's going on in their life, and they have to take it out in this moment." You know, those just, very simple little shifts can make a big difference in how we experience the world. It sounds to me like stretching perspective. Yeah. It's one thing to have one perspective that's very nearsighted, and then to be able to go beyond that is challenging- but really important. Love the example. I think it made it very clear, and it begs the question of was there a time in your life when you were lacking these perspectives and felt stuck? Hmm. Part of me feels like always in a in a way. there are aspects of the world now that I can't look at them in certain ways 'cause I'm not open to them. But I feel like that concept hit for me two years ago of wow, you can be open to an infinite amount of perspectives. So before that, I felt a lot more limited, but I think because of the school that I went to and the people that I was surrounded with, like I always was given the opportunity to have an open mind and explore that. So I think compared to a lot of people, I felt very open and in my perspective, open in how I view the world. there are just different aspects that or different parts of my life where I feel stuck, and I forget that to apply those perspectives. But I wouldn't say that there's like a point in my life where I felt extra stuck. When you're young, you don't have a lot, whole lot of concepts. You don't have a whole lot of ways of looking at things in general. So I guess when I was younger, maybe pre-college, I had a lot fewer perspectives to play with. And then college opened that up for me, too. I think a lot of people would appreciate hearing that it's an ongoing process. You're still, and you always will be navigating a sense of stuckness with certain decisions or life endeavors, perspectives. Because oftentimes, a lot of people speak as though they've got it all figured out, I have learned this, I've won, I've made it, and at the end of the day, as much as you can know about perspectives and have that muscle Strengthened. It's never gonna be perfect. So true. You've spoken a lot about this school of yours- from when you were younger. I think we should give the audience and myself a refresher on this school, how it contributed to where you are now. Yeah. I would say it's one of the largest contributors, honestly. it's called a Sudbury school. That's, the larger philosophy, that it fits into. My specific one was, it's the... It was under a free school. There's, free schooling, unschooling, Sudbury schooling. Those are, like, the main philosophies. And so it's all mixed ages. It's K through 12, and, it's completely self-directed education. There's no curriculum, no grades, no requirements in general. So kids can just, show up, do whatever they want basically all day, and, go home at the end of the day. It's also a democracy. We need some r- you know, way of ordering things, so we have, a school meeting that's run by all the students. And we have a facilitator, and that cycles out every two weeks, so we kinda keep it clear. And that's where kids can make rules for the community. And then we have a judicial committee that makes sure that the rules are being followed in a way. So any time somebody breaks a rule, anybody can write them up in a book, and they go to have a mediation about it, essentially. So we have, no hitting as one of our rules, and if somebody hits somebody else, they can be written up, and they go to mediation, and they talk it out. Sometimes there's, like, a reminder if it's the first time. Sometimes there's some kind of, consequence of some sort, So I went to this school when I was five years old all the way through 18, and it was a fascinating experience for me because I got to be a kid, I got to play with other kids my age, and we played make believe, and we made stories, and I feel like we learned a lot just through getting to be a child in a lot of ways. We force a lot of kids into "Oh, you sit down. You have to learn about math, science, English, history," when these kids don't even know what any of that is. All they know is like what's going on around them and how do they make sense of it. And these, oh, these abstract things that are happening so far away from them, y- how do you grasp that as a child, It's so difficult. but I think in my school, I got to play firsthand with the concepts that were coming to me. I got to find out my own way of thinking about it. I was never told how to think about these things, so I had to figure it out for myself, and that kind of went with, came with me throughout my life. And I was like, "Oh, I understand this concept that's coming to me because I learned that when I was a kid, and I can apply that to the other knowledge that I've gotten as well." And also, this was a great place to form relationships. It was not very... There weren't many people. There was like 40 people, and it was all mixed ages, so there was about like four or five people my age at a time. I graduated the class of two. Oh my God. So that was a lot. But because there was no classes or structure throughout the day, I ended up just hanging out and talking with people and getting to know them and getting to know them pretty deeply. what do people think about that we don't normally talk about 'cause we're always busy doing something? Or what do, h- what are our passions? What do we like doing? What do you... You have to do something all day, right? What are, what do these kids end up doing? And a lot of them end up figuring out, "Oh, I am really passionate about this. I'm really curious about this." We had one kid who was just like super into trains, and all he did all day was like study about trains. I was like, "Okay, you do you," but now if I have any questions about trains, like I know who to go to. So it's a very... I contribute most of m-my, successes to my school and, my family and, so it's pretty awesome. It sounds very student driven. Yeah. Not much authority figure intervening. No. We have three staff members, and they're just there, as adults, to make sure things don't get out of hand, and they're part of the community as well. Wow. What was your niche? What would people come to you and be like, "This is what Jamie was doing. I'm gonna come find her when I need help." I really liked playing sports and board games. Those were my main, okay, sports, board games, and then walking to go get lunch with somebody. And each of those things has a world within it. Like sports, we made up a lot of sports. It was like board games and sports went in the same category in a lot of ways. Like we made a lot of board games, we made up a lot of sports, and you learn about how those things work in the larger systems. Like how do, how did football become created? We were going through that process at my school, essentially. and with board games, like we were learning strategy, we were learning communication styles, we were learning how other people think, and, we were playing card games at certain points too, so you're learning about different math style logic. You like, all these lessons that were within these activities, we were learning them by actually going through something, and doing it in our own way, and finding our own styles. But honestly, I think my walks to get lunch were probably my favorite thing. So we have these like freedom allowance levels at a certain age. If you were mature enough, you could go off campus, and walk around, and explore wherever you wanted, and the whole school had to vote whether or not you were responsible enough. You had to present your case at the meeting and be like, "I think I'm responsible enough to go explore the town. Do you guys think so?" And then they'd be like, "Yes, based on how I know you, you are responsible enough." so I would... We were in this cute little town, and there was some restaurants around, and so I would take two or three friends, and we would go and walk, and get food takeout, eat at the park or something, or we would go and sit down in a restaurant. And those times were my favorite because we... That's where you could have those intimate discussions. You're outside of the school. There's not like little kids running around all over the place. You can talk about whatever, and it can be enclosed within that adventure. And you have a start point, a middle point, and an end point, so you can understand "Oh, we can get deep with each other throughout this process, and then when we get back to school, okay, that's over." And that was really big for me. I have a few different really close friends that they became my really close friends just because they were the people who wanted to go out and get lunch with me. I think I've also taken that throughout my life as well. Like I have my friends now that I would equate to the people who would go out with, and get lunch with me on these walks. That's amazing It's very untraditional, o- obviously. And yet so many important lessons intertwined in everything you're saying about how the school was run. Someone might look at that and be like, "What were these kids doing? Just running around, walking to lunch, figuring it out all for themselves." But so many things could come out of that. For example, critical thinking, being so curious, building relationships, being able to deal with conflict. Totally. That was a big one. Which I think people are getting worse at- Yeah as we go. Not to mention we're more and more disconnected. I know you're really fascinated by relationships, Will you tell us why? Yeah. using this context of my school and, walking to lunch with people and talking to them, I think I got to a level with people from a very young age of their inner thoughts and their inner ways of experiencing life that I've learned throughout life that is rare. Not a lot of people open up their entire psyche to you. and through relationship, especially close relationships, people act as a very deep mirror for each other. I have talked about things I didn't... wouldn't even know to talk about with myself with somebody else, because we had this back and forth asking questions or getting deeper into it. And then, so that's, one part of relationships that I find really fascinating, the mirror to yourself, how you can get to know yourself on a crazy deep level through relationship. And then also, the other side of that is getting to know somebody else and understanding, oh, what makes this person similar to me? What makes this person different from me, and how are both of those things beautiful in their own ways? And this is a valid way of experiencing the world. I didn't even know that was possible. Wow. And that's talk about perspective as well. seeing into somebody else's worldviews, you have a whole new opening to the world through that person in a way. And every time you're hanging out with somebody, you open a world that you're both inhabiting, which is like you can't really have on your own. Both of you are entering into this new space where you're interacting with each other's m- minds, bodies, ways of viewing the world, and then it opens up a whole new experience for both of you. When you are in a relationship with another person, you're in a new relationship with the world in a way, which is, like, ah, so cool. You have just highlighted another perspective that I- desperately need to consider. For so long, I have thought the best way to know myself is to be by myself. Do things by myself, be in solitude, go on the solo trip, not be in romantic relationship- However, I can see what you've just said is such a great argument- for being able to learn about yourself and still grow as an individual while you're in relationships. Totally. Although I do still think it's important to learn who you are on your own and be in solitude, at least it has been for me, it's incredible to recognize that there's other options- Totally to continue learning about ourselves. One thing that keeps coming up in so many classes recently related to psychology that is coming into my brain right now is the concept of deflecting things about ourselves onto other people- that we don't always like about ourselves. And f- what I mean by that is we might get triggered by someone else in our life life And oftentimes it's because we have a hard time accepting that in ourselves. For example, I'll give an example now because maybe not everyone is tracking. For so long in my life, and still oftentimes, I rush around, do everything so fast. It's like I have to brush my teeth so fast. I've gotta walk on the sidewalk a million miles an hour, And then I'll be walking the streets of New York and see someone in such a rush, and I just get so angry. And I'm like, "That's what I... Like, I wish I could slow down, and I wish you could slow down." So thank you for the new perspective. Yeah. I think conflict is huge when getting to know ourselves and breaking through different layers too. 'Cause we, with ourselves, a lot of the time we're like, "Okay, how can I be happy? How can I make my life a pleasant one?" we don't go through conflict, and I think people in relationships make us go through that. People want r- things resolved a lot of the times. They're like, "Okay, I have to go through this." and we do learn a lot about ourselves, and sometimes it takes some time away from that. But I'm thinking a lot, I'm like, I have these thoughts in the back of my head while I'm saying this, of you talking about being alone and engaging with, yourself and how that's a way to get to know yourself. In the context of relationships as well, we can have relationships outside of other people as well. when you're alone, you're still engaging with different parts of the world. You are finding yourself in relationship with your environment in certain ways. And we can still get some of those back and forths even with objects, even with, the wind, something like that. One of the people closest to me, he's a chemistry person. He's really into chemistry. And I, every time I have him explain some kind of thing in chemistry, I'm like, "Describe it like it's people in relationships," because that's all chemistry is like things relating with one another and then causing reactions based on that. I was like, "I can understand that through the context of relationships." He's "Okay, that's great, 'cause that's what it is." And I'm like, "Okay. Just don't use your science jargon 'cause I will not get it." And we figure out a way to communicate through that. That's special that you have a friend like that, and can also embrace the fact that chemistry isn't your language, relationships are. Yeah. What is driving you in life currently. That is such a big question. I love that question. it allows me to take it anywhere. so I've been trying to really hone in on what do I wanna do with my life, I came to this program because I was looking for something that merged philosophy and psychology. That was my initial want for this program. I wanted to, investigate the bigger issues, the bigger topics in life. I wanted to understand, what is this goop that I'm swimming in, you know? And that's how I found this program. Initially, I did wanna be a therapist. That was my, my first goal. And then throughout this program I've said to myself, "Maybe I could reach more people as a philosophy professor," 'cause I feel like that angle works a little better for me and, and what the contents, are in the conversation. Different philosophers have different ideas and worlds and building and all of that. But recently I've been like, "Why would I wanna be a therapist? Why would I wanna be a philosophy professor? What are the deeper elements that are going into those careers?" And for me, it's how can we all understand the world and ourselves, and then how to navigate the world and ourselves in a way that works out for us and the environment and the people around us. that's the main focus that I have in my life. what is the world? Who am I? And then how do I go about just existing and going through time and navigating both of those and making decisions and all of that? Which is kind of a huge, it's all-encompassing thing. But I think if, if more people zoomed out and looked at it that way instead of getting really close and into all these details and forgetting that, we are just these weird beings that just spontaneously existed one day. And all of this stuff exists around us, and we just have to figure that out. that's a crazy thing. we just have to go about life, and people tell us how it works, and we're like, "Okay." And then five years later they're like, "Actually, it works a different way." And you're like, "Okay, guess I gotta go through..." But, you know, it's just what is this place, and how do we go about living in it? Something that's coming through for me is this element of pushing boundaries and questioning the way that people try and confine humans and beings. Totally. You seem like you would be really good at someone telling you something and being like, "Hang on a sec." "Tell me more, and that's incorrect." "And I'm gonna tell you why." That's funny. Yeah. I think it's important to question things. My roommate gets mad at me sometimes. She's She tells me something, I'm like, "Yeah, but what if we looked at it, what if we looked at it this way?" And she's like, "Can I just look at it the way that I wanna look at it?" I'm like, "Okay. Why are you talking to me, then?" you know how with your parents, maybe this isn't everyone, but you go to one parent for something depending on the answer you wanna hear. And then you go to the other person, the other parent, or parental figure, or friend, because you wanna hear this thing. So I bet there's a lot of people who are like, "Man, I just can't handle multiple perspectives today." Totally. I'm gonna avoid Jamie now. sometimes one of my friends will text me randomly and be like, "I need your perspective on this-" Yes "situation." Incredible. Because this podcast is all about worthiness as just being and moving through this gloop- unclear of where we're going, and being okay with exactly where we are and exactly who we are- I ask you If there's any label in your life that you've carried And that has maybe confined you in any way? Good question Honestly, I'm thinking back to my school again because there we were seen as just who we were, like, just people. Because it was so small, there was like 30, 30 to 40 kids at a time. We just knew everyone as who they were and how they fit into the community, and that was most of my life. I didn't have a whole lot of experience outside of that school. I was a gymnast. I had... I played soccer, you know, all of that. but those are a bit smaller in my life. So I grew up with a stronger sense of just, me as a person, as Jamie, as who I am, and that's been really, really great for me. I, I think any time that I've been put in a box after that, I've just been like, "Yeah, that's so funny, that you think you can do that." Which is incredibly rare. Yeah. This is... This school. Say the name of this school one more time, and where it was. It's called the Jersey Shore Free School, mine specifically, and it was in... It was at the Jersey Shore, where I grew up. Okay. It's a little town. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I hope in the future that the message can be spread more, especially among the youth, that being Jamie is exactly who you need to be. Yeah. And there's nothing else that you need to be. You can go off and have these interests and do these things, but at the end of the day, you can always turn back inward and know exactly who you are. So it's incredible you learned that from such a young age. Totally. I'm thinking actually about one time. Y- the only label that I've really felt that have... it's kind of weighed on me, has been girlfriend, which is so fascinating- now that I'm thinking about it. I had my first, my first boyfriend when I was, like, 16 to 18, and one time he got me flowers, and I got really mad at him. Aw. I was like, "You did the basic thing that you're supposed to do for your girlfriend, and you didn't, you didn't even ask me what kind of things I like. if you... what if you got me a gift through getting to know who I am and what I would want? You just got me flowers 'cause I'm your girlfriend." I just got really upset. I was like, You're looking into a window of what a relationship's supposed to be instead of, like, actually being in our relationship." And that was the first time that popped up. And then my second boyfriend was in college for two years, and I called him my partner instead of my boyfriend. I was like, "My first boyfriend was my boyfriend." And I was like, "Okay, I can... you can still call me your girlfriend, but that f- feels, juvenile." And I was like, we're more serious than that." So I went into being, his partner. And then my third/current relationship, I was like, "We are not gonna do the girlfriend/boyfriend thing. We're not gonna go through that. we're not even gonna have any labels, because I just want us to be in our genuine relationship. I want..." His name's Eli. I was like, "I want you to be Eli and me to be Jamie, and for us to just happen to like spending time together and doing whatever we wanna be doing." I don't wanna get flowers and chocolate. I don't wanna get each other hearts on Valentine's Day or... "I don't like this construct of a relationship, a romantic relationship, that's been built up. I don't wanna play into that just 'cause we're supposed to. what is a real relationship? What are... What does it mean when two people find each other and love each other so deeply in the world? what does that truly mean instead of this construct that's been built up over time?" And it was a funny thing throughout our relationship, like, when any time someone would call me his girlfriend, he'd be like, "Nope, she's not my girlfriend. I have to make that very clear. That's something that's very important to me." Hey, that's him listening- Yeah and, respecting the way that you're showing up in the world. Totally. We're coming to the end. Sad. Last quick thing I'll ask you, if we can do it within one minute What is the best way to get to know someone? Ooh. In a single phrase. Wow. Um, Questions. Questions. Okay. So true. And also, I think there's something about being accepting and not judging them. people will t- keep going if they trust you, if they trust that you're gonna hold what they're saying. And it, questions, are like, "Oh, that's so fascinating," "Expand on that." It's, "I trust you, I accept you, and I'm curious about you." I think that's a great way to show people you can open up, and then people, at least in my experience, will open up. Thank you. Thank you for being you, for showing up as Jamie, for being here on this podcast, volunteering your time and energy. I'm so grateful. Jamie is accepting, passionate, curious, fascinating, whatever. All the things. My name's Rachel Peck. You've been listening to Unmasked. Thanks for being here.