Closing the Open Loops: Robin Quinn Keehn on Boundaries, Self-Trust, and Difficult Conversations

Hello everyone, welcome back to Tell My Story, the podcast where we explore real-life stories, personal growth, career journey, challenges, and the lessons that shape our lives. I'm Henry Chuetulu, and today we are having a conversation about boundaries, self-trust, difficult conversation, emotional intelligence, and the unfinished situation that can quietly affect our peace of mind. My guest is Robin Keane, a human dynamics specialist, satisfied mediator, author of Stop Stealing From Yourself, and creator of the Debates Without Hate curriculum. Robin helps people identify and close what she calls open loops, the conversations, promises, commitments, and decisions that remain unsolved, and continue to consume our energy. Through her own experience, Robin discovered the importance of setting boundaries, recognizing patterns, and learning to trust herself. Today, we'll explore how to communicate more effectively, handle difficult conversations, and stop abandoning ourselves just to keep others comfortable. Robin, welcome to Telling My Story. It's a pleasure to have you here with us today.

Thank you, Henry. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Okay, Rabin, you describe yourself as someone who used to be the strong one, the peacemaker and the overgiver. What did that role look like in your life?

Well, like many Western women anyway, we've grown up with believing that we had to be the one who said yes to everything, be kind, be nice. Never make anyone else uncomfortable. Take it on, whatever it needs to be. I think women are in some ways way more than men, like chameleons. We can just change our color because somebody asks us to. But the problem with that is at some point, It becomes unworkable. And when we say yes to everything without really thinking it through, we end up with things that we don't want to do in places we don't want to be. And then we eventually ask ourselves, what am I doing here? How did I get to this point? So I think you don't know it necessarily as it's happening, but every woman I know, in particular women, has had to pause and say, why am I doing all these things that don't have anything to do with what's really important to me? So it's easy for us to take these things on just because of the way we grew up and what we witnessed other women doing, in particular, our moms, our grandmas. So saying yes has always been the thing. And I'm saying eventually, there comes a point where you realize this isn't the thing you thought you'd be doing with your life and you have to make a decision. And that requires looking at things differently and setting boundaries and having difficult conversations to set those boundaries.

Wow, that's actually very inspiring. So when did you realize you were abandoning yourself?

Yeah, I actually had a thing happen to me on the beach, Henry, about five years ago. I'd been on the Oregon coast here in the United States and I had had friends visit me. I had a condo that week. And I had had my kids come, a couple of my kids come for a few days. And then I had some friends show up. And then I had some of my clients that are in my mastermind come for a few days to have kind of like a working vacation. And