I read a little meme about the White Rabbit and Alice—words set against a whimsical forest backdrop, though not in a voice that felt like it was from the original tale. In it, the White Rabbit tells Alice:
“I’m not going to love you. Not yet. I want to make sure all the holes in you are filled, that you love yourself completely first.”
I thought it was beautiful—a quiet encouragement to tend to self-love.
However, I then looked it up on Reddit, and a commenter saw it differently. They said it was about transactional love, coming from a narcissistic bunny.
Sigh. So many perspectives, so little time—and apparently no time to let a nice sentiment exist about the importance of learning to love yourself first.
But they weren’t too off in the next line when the Rabbit says:
“Now you’re going to start asking yourself what makes you so imperfect and what you did wrong so that I can’t love you at least a little. You know, that’s why I can’t love you.”
That hits different.
Because suddenly it’s not about boundaries or healing—it’s blame. It’s saying, “Your insecurity is the reason I will withhold love from you.” It’s not tenderness; it’s emotional superiority dressed in whimsical metaphor. I get why people read that as manipulative.
I’ve been thinking about this as it relates to therapy. This week, a couple of clients seemed to pull away, visibly panicked, after I asked something tender. My curiosity—meant to understand—was perceived as a threat. And I felt it in my body instantly.
I did that, I thought. As if I had pushed them into distress. I felt myself slip off solid ground, into the fast-moving river of self-blame and panic.
In both sessions, I scrambled—grasping internally for something steady. And in both, I realized: we needed what was happening to be okay. Not fixed. Not explained away. Just okay.
In one, I named it: “Is it okay that I feel helpless, even for a moment, with you?”
And they said yes.
And we relaxed.
What we needed wasn’t repair—it was permission. To be together in the discomfort. To stop fighting the current.
When I let go of the need to fix, and when they let go of needing me to know, a space opened. One where we could sit with the fear, give it a name, and allow it. And that naming—that allowance—made the fear bearable.
That’s when I remembered that line from Dune:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer… I will permit it to pass over me and through me… Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
I will fear. And I will face it. And I will do so again and again.
Love always,
Jaclynn
Going On 40 