Why Receiving Love Can Feel So Hard — and How to Open Again | Robyn Vogel on Coming Back to Love

Hello and welcome back to Magic in the Muck, a soul's compass for change. I'm Jennifer Nagle, and I'm so excited to be joined by Robin Vogel today. She is the creator of Come Back to Love and author of Come Back to Love: A Path to Healing. She's a trauma-informed therapist, couples specialist, and a certified love and intimacy coach. Robin teaches internationally and leads transformational retreats, which is actually how our paths crossed. And we met recently in May on a retreat host familiarization trip in Costa Rica, and I would say we connected pretty much immediately, and it kind of felt as though we'd known each other for much longer. So I'm so delighted today that we get to invite all of you into our conversation. So, Robin, welcome to Magic in the Muck.

Thank you. I love Magic in the Muck.

What is Magic in the Muck to you? What does that mean to you?

Well, it's such a great question. First of all, I love magic, and you know sometimes there's a lot of muck in life, but there's always golden nuggets, and for me that's the magic. So no matter what's happened in my life and what's happened in the lives of people I love and care about, I always feel like I can just find that magic in there because for me, everything has a purpose, and all the things that have seemed to be really challenging and were really challenging in my life have still yielded so many gifts, and I can really appreciate that now. After years and years of processing and digging, and what I call excavating, to really learn more about those gifts and finding the magic in the muck, and and we can keep talking about this mantra of magic in the muck because it's also a, it's really a mantra for life, you know. I think that when we can all embrace that there is magic, even though there's muck, and we can hold both.

Yeah,

life is very different when we live them.

Yeah, and the excavating to find the magic. You know, another mantra. Everything that I know about you is all about come back to love, and that's another beautiful mantra. And I'm curious about what coming back to love means to you, and what are what is it that we're coming back from when we come back to love?

That's great. We're coming back from the muck. Coming back from the muck. Interesting. Somebody else asked me that recently in one of my recent retreats. You know, what are we going back to? And she was sort of holding it as like, well, I'm going forward. She calls herself. She's in love school. She's done three retreats with me. She feels like it's love school, and she's moving forward, which she absolutely is. So then there was this question. Well, what's this? What's this thing About back, and then I started sharing about how I really believe that we come in as divine beings. You know, we come in pure. We come in not, except for the influences that do happen in the womb, which I believe do happen in the womb. You know, we come in pure, and then we just start absorbing all that's around us for the first like six seven years of life, and and then we sort of spend the rest of our lives unraveling all of those things. I think we're just absorbing, right? We're absorbing our parents, we're absorbing our environment, we're absorbing all the things that happen. So yeah, the sponges, right? Yeah, and we're absorbing like stuff from our ancestors too. Yes, and we're divine beings. I

like like you said. I really believe that too. We we are we are love.

Yes,

and that all this crap and muck happens that kind of muddles things up a little bit, doesn't it?

Yes, absolutely. Yes, and so yeah, this this returning to the divine love that we are truly in our hearts, in our you know most essential selves. That's that's what the work is all about. It's like clearing the things that are not love.

That's really beautiful. So, is love something that we need to learn, or is it something that we're that we're gradually remembering underneath our protective patterns.

I think it's both. I think we're remembering what's underneath our protective patterns, and we know love because it's our essence. But love is also a verb, and so there are many things to learn about how to love. And so, you know one of the the the initial questions is what is love, and you know we're sort of talking about it right now because there's so many different meanings. Yeah, yeah. So what is love? I know. I mean, it's a big question, really, when it comes to what is love. Do we have a brainstorm? From our listeners, please. That's how I start my retreats. I love that. Like, what is love? What is love? You know, I say it's a verb. Someone else, you know, last week said, "Well, it's also a noun. Yes, energy. Yes, it's also an emotion. Yes, it defines can define a partnership, you know, passion, joy, peace. Like there's so many words that I can find love, and most of us can feel it, although not all. And you know, some people just needing to do some more excavation work in order to really feel love, and

yeah, have a misunderstanding on what love is, or expectations around love, how it should be shown or expressed. Or there's just so much that gets muddled up in there, isn't there?

Yeah, there's a lot of gear

into that. Yeah,

yeah, because it can be very transactional for people that grew up in that kind of environment.

Yeah, yeah.

If you do this, I will love you. If you are a perfect student, I will love you. If you behave in a certain way, you will be loved. You know, there is so much of that. And even if parents don't mean it that way, I think some of that can still get communicated because people get hugged and patted on the back, and they get words of affirmation when they've done something "quote unquote" good. And you know, we learn these messages that make love seem very conditional.

Yeah, that this is what I need to do in order to receive, and then that looking for love outside of ourselves-if we haven't learned to love ourselves, which you know many haven't.

No, and exactly back to what you know we were just thinking. Like we're looking at it from outside because we are trained in that way. I did something really great. I got an A on a paper, and I got a hug, and maybe I got a present right when I was in third grade, or whatever. And so we're just, and then that feels good. And so, what do I have to do to get that again? Oh, can I have more of that? You know, and there's a lot of that energy if it's not given sort of just freely in families. Family, yeah, and that unconditional acceptance. I love you for who you are, not for what you do. Yes, yeah, yeah.

So I was looking at your, you know, some of what you've written and your website, and you've shared publicly that your own journey began with some profound loss at a really young age, and I'm curious if you're willing to share how that early experience shaped the ways that you learned to protect yourself. Great question.

So, just to share with our listeners that yeah, the early loss was my mother and her illness, which began when I was six years old. So, I really consider the loss, and even though she died when I was 10 years old and she was 38 years old, so there was four years of an illness. The loss definitely began when I was six years old because she was just so stressed and preoccupied and scared, and you know, really just checked out of parenting, and so just right there, you know, a young child with a mother who's you know supposed to be giving love and caring for, she really went into a state of kind of neglect, and so there were things like being sent to my room for hours and hours, or for a day and a night, or you know, sent to my room without dinner, or things like that. And so, what do we do? And I always say, "Thank God we do this. Thank God we have the inner strength, even at that young age, to figure out how to protect ourselves, to figure out how to survive the situation. And you know, that's when we are not able to do that. Then I think we're really in trouble. Although it is quite difficult and was for me to put all these protections in place, and then again have to unravel them and dismantle them over many years, because in order to open myself up to love with others, with friends, with with boyfriends when I was younger, with with partner, with the man I married, like all of that needed extra tending because it, you know, in the subconscious there's just an automatic danger, danger

warning,

and then the protectors come right in because they don't know the difference, you know, between the situation that happened early on and perhaps something that happened as a young adult. You know,

yeah, yeah. They absolutely served a purpose at a point in time in your life when you needed that for survival. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So, how did these experiences eventually lead you to the work that you do today?

Oh gosh, did they lead me all right? Yeah. Well, honestly, I've been doing this work probably since I was 10 years old. I believe that. Yeah. I mean, I've been watching myself put in the barriers. I've been watching myself learn to distract or dissociate when things were too painful and sad at a very young age, and then I watched myself feel differently about marriage than my friends felt at in my 20s. Lo and behold, I did get married and have two children, but then I went through a divorce, and as I was going through the divorce and separation, it was actually my ex-husband who said to me, husband at the time, who said to me, you know, you really should do this work. Like you're really good at it. You've learned a lot. You know, he had, I don't know what the right word is there. Maybe the honor, the difficulty, the challenge, the whatever it was to really witness a good portion of my early healing. You know, he was front row and center a very difficult, you know, journey of just the beginning of the healing journey. So he really watched, you know, where I was, where I came from, yeah, where I was and where I had landed, so it was actually him who said, you know, this you'd be really good at this work. And I thought, yeah, actually, you're right.

Well, and how beautiful to be witnessed through your journey by him, and not only witnessed but actually seen for your for your resources and what you the potential of what you had going for you,

yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I really dove into it right after that. I started looking more deeply at what I could, where I could serve better in my life,

and that you that you're passionate about working with relationships and couples and relational, you know, so many of us long for deep connection and deep love, and but like we were talking about the protections that that we've developed through heartbreak and loss and unmet needs, they make that connection hard to receive for some people, yeah, absolutely. How can people begin opening hearts again without abandoning or losing themselves?

Great question. Yeah, I just want to emphasize what you said, and that is that receiving is such a big challenge. I think culturally, it's a big challenge. I think that you know we're just sort of acculturated to to not receive, to push off when somebody gives a compliment. You know, oh no, you know, yeah, and to sacrifice instead of really tending to ourselves. And so this piece around receiving is actually huge. There's a whole chapter in my book just on receiving, so it's a learning, and it's been a really big learning for me, honestly. Over I'm going to say 50 years at this point. Wow.

Well, what have you needed to shift yourself to be able to receive?

Yeah. So it's such a it's such a good question, and it's very subtle. So to start, sort of at the basic level, the foundational level is is how do you receive? How do you receive compliments? How do you receive support? You know, are you open to people listening, or do you feel guilty? You know, how do you receive gifts? And just to start looking at and literally practicing, because that's where it begins. Like practicing, thank you, and that's it. Like that's a complete sentence. Thank you, you know. Yeah. And I just think there's so much mixed up in there in terms of receiving, and the the one that shows up so much is there's a underlying there can be an underlying belief like I'm taking up too much space. So and so can't handle me. Nobody wants to be with all of this that I bring. I heard that last weekend at one of my retreats several times with different words, and that's all about receiving. That's all about saying, like, I am who I am, and I'm going to be met. And when I'm met, I'm able to receive, and they're able to receive me, able to receive them. But I feel like the reps, if you will, like the the initial sort of practice strengthening this aspect of ourselves can be looked at in a very simple way. You know, how do you receive on a day-to-day basis from the people in your life, from your kids, from your partner, and where can you start to notice guilt, self-sacrifice? Pushing away, when instead, if you just pause and take a breath and make a change, it's small, subtle changes over time. And there's, you know, there's big tools, of course, also that I teach and that I use. But I think it begins like in the micro activities of how we live every day,

I totally agree that those micro, those micro moments, and those when we put conscious intention and attention to what's going on for us, and I wonder if a part of that too is us. I need to also practice receive. I need to receive myself. I need to accept myself and receive my own, so that I can receive from others. That's something that's been so. I know. I still do sometimes feel uncomfortable when people are lavishing, you know, compliments or gratitude. If it's too much, I notice my. I have a somatic, and I'm standing there. I'm practicing receiving, receiving. But really, it's it's really interesting to witness my discomfort and what that's about, and just

yeah,

yeah,

absolutely. It can be uncomfortable. I have a practice myself where if you know somebody or a group of people are giving me appreciations of gratitude, just like you just did. I have to just settle my body, take a deep breath, and then I sort of just energetically open, and I might even bring my hands like from closed to open, and and just like open my palms and just try to let. And this is what I started practicing. I think about actually 15 years ago, just letting it sort of wash over me and like just like a waterfall, like I don't want to yeah receive it and see how much it can take in. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. I could have borrowed that from you. I'm glad.

Yeah,

it's a practice.

How can people recognize the difference between what's a healthy boundary and emotional armor like protectiveness?

Oh, such good questions.

Want to dive in and be

absolutely. You know that's a really interesting one, and it's very specific to the individual, of course, because and they're also the same and different, right? Because sometimes the armor that we have to protect ourselves from feeling too vulnerable, for example, is the exact right boundary in that moment, you know. Yeah, I want to keep myself safe. You're inviting something that doesn't feel safe to me, and so even if it's protective armor that I learned when I wasn't safe as a child,

it's a resource.

It's a resource exactly, and it's a very appropriate healthy boundary Moment, yeah. The key really is to notice if you're using a like a repetitive pattern of boundaries that are keeping you really separate from what you want in life.

Ooh, that's good. Say that again because that feels important.

Yeah, the key is to notice when you're repeating like a pattern of protecting yourself, keeping you distant from what you want in your life. Yeah. So is it keeping you distant from finding a partner? Is it keeping you distant from the partner you have?

Yeah. Is

it keeping you separate from intimacy with your children? Yeah. You know.

Then this isolating me, yeah,

yeah, isolating me. Do I feel underneath the surface? I really wish I could share this experience, and right now I can't. Kind of beating yourself up about that, which happens very commonly. I think there's space there to look at, like how could I feel safer? And what do my parts? What do the protective parts need to feel safe?

It really is a lot of working with those protective parts, isn't it? And

absolutely,

yeah. No, we've talked a little bit about practicing receiving ways that we can practice receiving. So many capable people are so much more comfortable giving love than receiving it. Well, and I know you know, as therapists, it's so easy to like give love and acceptance and attention to others, and then the receiving of it can we discount ourselves. Many people can discount themselves. So, what are some more ways that we can allow more love and support and intimacy into our lives?

I think it's it's great to point that out because it's a very common dynamic that that is protection, leaving other people giving. Over giving, we have to look at over giving,

yeah,

self sacrifice, or just give, give, give. I recently somebody in one of my workshops said I'm a therapist. I take care of my aging mom. I take care of my 20 something daughter, and I'm just giving and giving and giving and giving and giving and giving, which can be a pattern because it's protective. You know, we can easily block out the receiving by over giving. So I think it's an it's like a little bit of an insidious protective part that gets

yeah

not it's not so easy to recognize. It's not so easy.

I know, and so common. And the other thing is, it's almost it feels. I'm I'm totally speaking for myself here. Like sometimes it feels like it's rewarded for you know, like oh, how do you get? How do you do so much? I don't like those questions, but like you do so much. How do you do it? How do you keep it together? I don't always keep it together. So yeah. So when when there's this external validation and external reward, and people just keep giving, giving, giving, but then there's that gradual disconnect from self, which is so important to come back to, come back to love, come back to self, come back to the magic in the muck. All of that

magic in the muck is yeah, yeah. And and again, I think it's really not something that we're taught. It's not remodeled. People get you know so praised for sacrificing themselves, and next thing you know, we're you know as women, maybe especially we're drained.

No,

we we can you know we can't get up off the couch. I mean, I had years of feeling that way. Yeah, and I didn't really understand that. What I didn't really understand receiving. Period. I knew that sometimes I would give and it would feel good. Yeah, that is a way to receive to really open up. This is my the visualization I use in my teaching is that we learn to first of all not receive at all, so the doors are closed, and then we can open up like a little crack, like I. For those just listening, I have my hands together in prayer position with just a little inch of space. It's like we can receive that much, but we actually have to open way, way, way, way up to a full, massive well of receptivity, and it's really a big piece of manifestation in creating your life because a lot of people will come to me and they'll be like, "Why can't I find relationship? Why can't I find the right work? Why can't I, you know, find a place to live that you know aligns with my being? And once we get into like the very subtle aspects of receiving, like they just left the door open a little crack, and it's like, how can the universe find that little crack in the door?

That little pinhole there,

yeah. Like the God, divine, whatever you want to say. Like, open it way up. It's much easier for the universe to go. Oh, yeah. Let me drop that in.

You know. Oh, I love that. That's such a beautiful metaphor, and also just even even, I encourage the listeners too to just even practice that with their own with your own bodies right now. Yeah, having your hands like that little crack there versus opening the chest and being wide open and allowing the breath to come in to really be open to receiving. Yeah, I think I had a huge lesson in that. As you were sharing that, a memory came to me. What was it? 19 years ago, when my husband was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and a lot of the listen, the regular listeners know the story. But facing facing cancer and his possible death at the time, which he didn't die. For those who are just listening now, and being pregnant with our first child too, it really came to a point where it cracked me wide open to receive and be willing to. There was so much help and support and love that just came pouring in from. It was literally flooding in a beautiful way, but in a way that was hard at first, and then once opening up and allowing that to come in, so many miracles and that came available because of opening up, I think, and being open to that. Oh yeah, so I really love that meeting, learning that. Yeah. So, Robyn, what does love ask of you now that it didn't before?

Oh gosh, you know, I think love keeps asking me the same questions over again. Yeah, yes. I mean, when there is a challenge and I'm stuck, the question that I ask is, "What would love do? What would?" Love and are some of those more complex now than they were, you know, 50 years ago. In some ways, yes. In some ways, no. I think it's a good question to ask when you're stuck on something or stuck with somebody. What would love do? Because most people want to be right instead of being in love. That's another question to ask. Like, would I write, or would I rather be in love? Yeah, most people will say they'd rather be in love. Some people will say they'd rather be right, and so okay, we need to look at that or take a look at that. If you want, you don't have to. So I just I think that love keeps asking me, and so okay, say what something that's a little more personal to me, and that is that love has definitely asked me to be more vulnerable, to show up more fully as myself without the roles that I've so gracefully attached to myself. Right? Yeah, yeah. Data therapist, mother, etc. and we can stay in roles. And then there's a way that I was hiding behind my roles, especially my role as facilitator. I really stepped into that so deeply over the last like 20 years, and it became a strategy to protect myself. You know, I I realized it was happening. I kind of watched it happening, and then I just sort of got lost in it. And so, in the last couple of years, I've realized, you know, that's not serving me. It's not serving me. It's not serving the people that you know can be close to me, so

that's so beautiful and so key because I do think a lot of facilitators, leaders can hide behind that role by asking others to be vulnerable and open.

Yes,

yet and yet if we don't show that vulnerability and openness. You're right. There is that. There is a, a disconnect. The yeah, yeah. There's just that. Yeah,

performing, which I think you know we all do as humans. But when we're performing, we're not really being our true selves.

Yeah.

So I have like I have spent the last two years, I would say, very intentionally dismantling that attempt to being in a performing in a certain way, and the benefits are paying off. Yeah, and bringing your true self, bringing your being into your role, bringing bringing Robin and love into role of facilitator, rather than role of facilitator being front and foremost, Robin is at the front and in the role of facilitator. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah. It's a beautiful way to say it. I love that. So that's actually a really good segue into like share with their listeners. You have a pretty exciting retreat coming up over the new year, that's and I hear you still have a few spots available. Tell us about your retreat and what the intention is for this. Yeah, thank you. I first just say I've been leading retreats in beautiful places since 2016, so it's been 10 years of doing this, and I I love taking people to beautiful places and and immersing in the work, and also not being like in the everyday, you know, at home with all the things that are happening at home that might be stressful. So it's really nice to take yourself away, and then be in a space where we can kind of be in a more intimate container together. So yeah, so this retreat is in Costa Rica, and it's over New Year's. So it's an it's an eight day retreat which extends over New Year's. So I'm really excited to be in a space where we can do some sacred ritual and use all the elements that are so potent in Costa Rica, including the land. Very much so, the land and so the retreat is basically what we've been talking about in our conversation today. That we spend time really looking at what are the places where we're still holding ourselves back, and everybody shows up in a different space. Some people come with a partner. Some people come solo, whether they're partnered or not, because it's about where they, where each individual person is still holding themselves separate. What are the

patterns that keep repeating? You know, what are the behaviors that are getting in the way of, again, receiving and experiencing what they want to experience in their lives? And so, one of my regular participants, because I have a group that has they've come to every single one since 2016.

That's so great!

It's amazing. It's such a beautiful appreciation that I don't take for granted. And those, this one woman, especially in that group, she says, you know, every time I go on. Treat with Robin, I fall more in love with myself, and

oh,

it's beautiful.

Yeah, beautiful.

Yeah, it's very deep and gentle. And what I like about you know deep and gentle both. What I like about these long retreats is that there's a lot of space to like go deep and then relax and rest and integrate, and then go deep again, and

yeah,

take a swim in the river, and then go deep again and do a gentle yoga class or walk the labyrinth. You know, just it's so spacious. Yeah, that's

beautiful. How can people find you in general if they want to work with you or come or find out more about your retreats.

Yeah, thank you. So comebacktolove.com. We'll get everybody to my work and to me. That's just all spelled out one word: comeback to love.com. And right there in the front and center is a link to book a you know 15 to 30 minute call with me just to ask questions and share more about what's happening, and I can, you know, support in any way. I will share that. So it's lots of information there, lots of resources.

Wonderful. I'll make sure that that goes in the show notes, and your book. I'll put that in the show notes as well, so people can find your book to read more. And yeah, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Thank you so much for having me, Jennifer. It's so wonderful to be with you always.

Thank you.