335. The Emotional Journey to Success with Randy Lyman

Physicist and author Randy Lyman joins to talk about emotional disconnection and how unhealed emotions can disrupt success.

▬

Visit Randy's website (and the "How To" section!):
https://randylyman.com/
https://randylyman.com/howto/

Get your own copy of his book:
https://randylyman.com/the-third-element-book-order-page/

Check out Randy's socials to get more info:
https://www.instagram.com/iamrandylyman/
https://www.facebook.com/people/Randy-Lyman/61566555115024/    https://www.tiktok.com/@iamrandylyman

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole-person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Authors and others in the publishing community often talk about success, including what that looks like for each of them and what could be holding them back from attaining it. But is it possible our own unhealed emotions could be playing a part? Physicist and author Randy Lyman is here to share how emotional disconnection could be what's blocking you from finding success.

Jennia: Thank you so much for being here today!

Randy Lyman: Well, hello, Jennia! Good to be here.

Jennia: Yes! So why do you think so much of the advice on how to be successful avoids looking at emotions at all?

Randy Lyman: Oh goodness. I think everybody, including myself in the past, avoids their emotions because they're scary, they're not easy to understand, and most everybody has some negative emotions they're trying to avoid or they've tried to avoid in the past. So we don't get much guidance on how to do it. And it's not always easy and it can be messy if we don't have a method for going about it.

Jennia: Yeah, that's really true. Especially the scary part because it also means we almost have to take some accountability that it's not because of this outside force or the market or whatever it is. Yeah, that it could be something internalized that we need to deal with.

Randy Lyman: So for me the scary part of accountability was I couldn't blame anybody. I grew up in an environment where people were blaming each other and that was normal and I just thought it was normal. But then suddenly, wait a minute, I can't blame anybody? I'm responsible? So first that was scary and now it's like, yeah, of course I'm responsible. I have the power to change my reality for the better. And that's a transition that doesn't happen right away—

Jennia: Right.

Randy Lyman: —is going, "No, I want to be able to blame," to, "Yes, I wanna be able to take responsibility for my own reality." It doesn't happen overnight.

Jennia: Right. I think that's another part of it, too, because like you just said, it's not a quick transition. And so many of us are kind of looking for that five- or seven-step process where we finish it and then "tada!" it's all complete and there's nothing left to do. But, yeah, this is an ongoing thing that's going to take you some substantial amount of time.

Randy Lyman: And something I talk about in my book, The Third Element, is our ego is always gonna be here. It's a personality. We don't want to kill the ego. But our ego can learn to partner with our higher self through our intuition and with our creative, joyous inner child. And that's where a lot of wonderful parts of us exist. But that's also where the pain resides, is in that inner child. So people think, "Just gonna turn off the child. I don't want them making decisions." Well, I don't want my child making decisions either. And so if I embrace what they're feeling and I help that internal part of me—it's not completely separate, but it kind of feels separate at times. If I help that part of me work through the pain and the challenges and the hurt, then those don't seep into my adult life of making decisions and interacting with people. I can address the pain, work through it, or even at times we have to put it aside—We can't always address it in the moment.

Jennia: Right.

Randy Lyman: But we can be aware of it and we can bring it up later and we can work through it and clear it out of our space.

Jennia: Can you give an example of how it can seep into our everyday life? And I'd like an example for even just professional life, but also personal life.

Randy Lyman: Well, in professional life, if I'm worried because I have an underlying feeling of, what if I don't succeed? And what are my friends gonna think of me? And maybe, for me, a family member said, when I was 17, "I wish you were more like your friend John." Okay, well, they meant, "I wish I could connect to you." But I internalized that as they did not approve of me.

Jennia: Ahh.

Randy Lyman: And that internal pain was with me for 12 years before I became aware of it. And it drove me to success because I wanted to prove myself. But the problem was, that pain and wanting to prove myself showed up as worry—

Jennia: Ahh.

Randy Lyman: —It showed up as frustration. And so when I walk into a room, especially in a place of leadership, a position of leadership, and I have worry about, subconsciously, "Am I going to succeed? Am I going to be good enough? Am I going to get the respect to the people I'm working with?" All those subconscious emotions are felt by the people we interact with. No matter how good we are putting on a mask, no matter how strong we think we are, those underlying emotions are in our energy.

Jennia: Mhm.

Randy Lyman: And when I was able to work through those worries and doubts and all the emotional pains outside of work, then when I show up at work, I'm more calm, I'm more confident, I'm more compassionate and caring. And when I'm interacting with people, they don't feel that sense of inner turmoil that I was carrying with me.

Jennia: Oh yeah!

Randy Lyman: They feel, "Okay, Randy is here. He's a calm, logical guy. But I feel"—feel is a keyword—"I feel that he's a good guy and he'll work with me." Now I also take measures to make sure that the people I lead know that I'm here to support them. But that doesn't stick—that doesn't really take hold completely until I work through my own fears. And then in personal relationships, especially family and personal romantic relationships, they're a wonderful gift in the way of irritations to remind us of opportunities to heal. But when we don't understand that these gifts of irritation are really opportunities—

Jennia: Mmm.

Randy Lyman: —we just see that we want to change the outside world and we miss the point of, I can change myself and I can improve and no longer need to attract these problems to me.

Jennia: Mhm! Yeah, one thing you were saying that really stuck with me, and that was worried about being successful and I thought, how ironic is it that this worry about being successful or not could then prevent you from actually being successful?

Randy Lyman: And I talk about that in the book! So the universe, the law of attraction, does not understand negation. So I can say no to somebody, that's different than negation. But if I say, "God, I want no rain today," all the law of attraction hears is "rain." It doesn't hear "no rain." It doesn't hear the negation. If I say, "God, I hope I'm not a failure," all it hear's is "failure." If I'm worried about failure when I'm thinking about success, that energy of worry is within me as a vibrating energy, the same as an atom, or a nucleus in an atom vibrates—

Jennia: Mhm.

Randy Lyman: —at the atomic level, everything vibrates. If that worry within me vibrates, then the law of attraction says, "Oh, I'll bring you more of that same vibration." So when we say, "Okay, I do have worry"—and there's 14 different exercises in chapter seven [of the] book, I can go back through, and I can maybe do some journaling or do some breath work and I can get in touch with that worry and release it.

Jennia: Mmm.

Randy Lyman: That old energy is like a can of gasoline. It'll store for 10 or 20 years and still burn. But when I burn it, it's gone. So the gift reminds us, "Hey, there's something to feel," then we have to be bold enough to feel it and release it. And then when we do, now, it becomes so much easier to focus on the good. As soon as we let go of the pain, love replaces that pain immediately. And now it's easy to focus on good things.

Jennia: So when you had this realization, was it a breakthrough moment or was it something that occurred in little pieces before you realized what was going on?

Randy Lyman: So the mental part of the law of attraction occurred in little pieces. The physical part of taking care of my body and how I organized my space and treated the world around me, that happened in little pieces. I was at a four-day business communication seminar, and on the third day, we went through an exercise, "The Seven Levels of Truth," which I cover in my book. And I was having a challenge with people around me not being competent. I had a lot of incompetence. And so, Maria, my partner at the time, she said, "Look at yourself. It's a mirror of you." Well, my thoughts were confident, my actions were confident. I amped that up and I still had incompetence. Well, during this exercise, I got in touch with—a family member 12 years earlier had said, "I wish you were more like your friend John."

Jennia: Ahh.

Randy Lyman: —That was my huge epiphany. Well, I'm here in a group of 15 people and man, I just—I get to that pain and I'm just sobbing, I'm crying. Now, I'm not saying you have to cry every time to get through the issue—

Jennia: (laughs) Oh good!

Randy Lyman: —but I was. And it was helpful because I got through to the root cause and I let that pain go. And then I went back to work four days later . . . and all the people around me who were incompetent, suddenly, magically became competent or they left my life. Now—

Jennia: Ahh.

Randy Lyman: —I'm educated as a physicist. I'm about action and reaction.

Jennia: Right.

Randy Lyman: So I'm looking at this action and I'm looking at the reaction like, "Wait a minute, there's a connection here!"

Jennia: Yeah.

Randy Lyman: And it was pretty damn obvious for me. So I started looking at everything with, "Okay, how can I get to the underlying emotion? And when I work through this emotional issue, how does the world outside of me change?" And I saw the evidence of it and I just started focusing on that more and more. And so for 33 years now, I've been focused on this and seen tens of thousands of instances within myself and hundreds of instances within others—when I helped them through their emotional challenges—where their world just got better.

Jennia: Yeah! I wanna talk a little bit more, too, about how your science background influenced how you approached this? Or even if there was any research that you did?

Randy Lyman: Well, life has become research for me. And—so in science, everything is cause and effect. So I would watch what I felt, I would dig into an underlying emotion and I find it—and I don't always find it and understand it completely, but the key is to feel it—

Jennia: Ahh.

Randy Lyman: —And I cover this in the book. So our mind is never in the present moment in our thoughts. Observation may be in an instant, but our thoughts are never in the moment. Our emotions have to come through our body, and our body only exists in the moment. So our mind can never connect to the moment and process through emotions. We have to feel them.

Jennia: Mmm.

Randy Lyman: So I became aware of, "Okay, if I have an irritation, what do I need to feel?" And then when I would feel whatever I need to feel through EFT tapping, through journaling, through breath work, going to get a massage, going for a run, punching a punching bag, any of those things, and I would feel the release of energy, then I would see the logical problem go away. And people like, "Well, that doesn't make sense." And it did not make sense to me at first. But then I look at things and I say, "Okay, engineering and science is about energy and potential energy and kinetic energy and heat." And then you go to a deeper level of frequency within molecules, and then atoms, and then electrons, and then protons, and neutrons, and it's all energy.

Jennia: Mhm.

Randy Lyman: It's all vibration. So then I realized, okay, so my thoughts have a vibration of energy, my actions have a vibrational energy, and my emotions have a vibrational energy, and that interacts with the law of attraction. And so when I started looking at it from that standpoint of, "Okay, where's the vibration within me? Where is that being responded to outside of me?" And I start making these connections. Then when I bring it all together, it's like, "Oh! Well, this has happened so many times, it makes sense." And then I start having more and more success. And, like, man, I'll still deal with the logic and the reason, of course, but the key for me is always, what's the underlying emotion I have the opportunity to heal so that I don't need this lesson over and over again?

Jennia: Yeah. So I want to talk about that a little bit too. How would you define unhealed emotions?

Randy Lyman: Anything large or small that I didn't feel completely. So say I'm eight years old and they break my leg. And my dad says, "Don't cry. You're gonna be okay." Well, I'm eight years old and I broke my damn leg, it hurts.

Jennia: (laughs) Right. You're gonna cry.

Randy Lyman: I'm gonna cry! But dad says, "Nope!" Okay, so that energy, that emotion—every emotion is valid in the moment as a guidance for where to go towards and where to go away from in the moment—

Jennia: Mhm.

Randy Lyman: —If the moment passes, that emotion is no longer valid as guidance. So if I did not feel it 100 percent, say I felt at 40 percent, or even 80 percent, I got a little residual in there. That energy within me can only be released if I feel it completely. So I have to find a way to go back and feel the emotion. I don't need to understand it, but I need to feel it. Something really small can be . . . Maybe I'm in high school—

Jennia: Mhm.

Randy Lyman: —and I'm speaking up and somebody cuts me off. Well, I'm sitting next to a girl I got a crush on.

Jennia: Ahh.

Randy Lyman: And that's not a big deal, right? I'm an adult. Get over it. Well, when I'm in high school and I'm trying to figure the world out and suddenly somebody makes me embarrassed or look bad in front of somebody who I'm trying to impress, that's emotional.

Jennia: Mhm.

Randy Lyman: And even into our 20s, we're trying to figure out the world and trying to fit in. We're trying to figure out, "How am I going to make a living? How am I going to find a romantic partner? How am I going to find friends?" And that's an emotional journey. So when little things happen that I don't feel completely, I'm hanging on to those, not because I want to, but because that vibrational energy is stored within me. So when we feel it in whatever way we feel it in our body, it's turned into heat. And the first law of thermodynamics says that energy is not created or destroyed, it's only transformed.

Jennia: Right.

Randy Lyman: And in thermodynamics we can turn potential energy or chemical energy or electromagnetic energy into heat. And that old emotional energy we're holding onto to get—when we feel it gets turned into heat and it's gone. And the universe says, "Okay! You're done with that." Did that answer your question?

Jennia: Yeah! Yeah. So I also want to know if you have any advice for listeners on how they can identify when something is an unhealed emotion. Because it sounds very simple. But even just thinking a little bit of myself, I'm thinking, "Would I know? Would I be able to pick apart what it is or what it isn't?"

Randy Lyman: Okay, so my first answer—and I don't mean this as a smart ass answer (Jennia laughs)—but this is what I see as the truth: Any irritation is related to an opportunity to heal something emotionally, large, small, or otherwise. Now, the key isn't necessarily understanding it. The key is getting to the underlying feeling. So something that's really helpful for me is breath work. Take a breath in the moment—And there's lots of breath work experts who are better than me. But if I am aware of my breath coming into my nose or my mouth, filling my lungs and my diaphragm, and then as I inhale, I can feel that physical discomfort within me. And here's something weird, but it works: amplify that irritation, feel it in my body, and then I visualize [that] I'm gonna blow out the irritation.

Jennia: Yeah.

Randy Lyman: And so if I'm visualizing it and I'm feeling it, and I amp up the feeling, it's processing into heat in my body, I blow it out, and I'm setting the intention. And the universe says, "Okay, you're making the intention to heal, and I'm here to support you, and I'm gonna find a way for you to feel this." And when we set our intention and we open our mind to that opportunity, then even if we're not good at it, we're guided through to a solution to get through at least part of it and help build our confidence in the method.

Jennia: Yeah. So because I can see how this would at least help you feel more content with life, or even content with yourself, can you describe the relationship, then, between this and success?

Randy Lyman: Well, I was successful before I found this, but I was 30 or 40 times more successful after I started applying what I was learning to my business. And more important than material success was emotional fulfillment. I felt fulfilled. And I felt true joy. I felt true pride. I felt true connection with the people who I built success with. So my relationships were more fulfilling, my achievements were more fulfilling, my body was more healthy, and my profits in my business were a lot more fulfilling. And that became possible because I got the negative out of the way. And as I said, anytime we let go of the pain, love fills that space immediately. And we're naturally love, we're naturally meant to be successful.

Jennia: I like that you use the word "fulfillment." And I was even thinking about how we might define success in different ways. But if you were feeling fulfilled at each of these steps, you might not be one of those people who now feels the need to keep increasing that benchmark every time you hit one level of success. That might be where you are fulfilled and you don't feel that need to prove yourself to someone from 20 years ago, or this competitor in the market, or this other author who's on the bestselling list or whatever it is.

Randy Lyman: And when we can be grateful for our wins, even our small wins, and we slow down and we say, "Wow, thank you, universe, for whatever it is that I'm feeling." And if we don't have a big win, just thankful that I'm alive and I'm living in a safe place, and a good country, and I have a roof over my head, and I have an opportunity for success, and there's plenty of things to be grateful for. And then when I have a win of, I sell some books or I finish a book, slow down and feel the gratitude. And when we feel the gratitude, that's a vibration that the law of attraction responds to and says, "Oh, I'll bring you more things to feel grateful for." But if we just push and push and push, then that tells the universe, "I'm not fulfilled. And I have a feeling of lacking fulfillment." And that feeling of lacking is felt and responded to. But to slow down and feel the gratitude for the small steps along the way, takes us to a place of gratitude and feeling the abundance in our life. And then we have the opportunity to attract more abundance.

Jennia: Do you think that feeling of lacking or lacking something often comes from an unhealed emotion?

Randy Lyman: It comes from an unhealed emotion. But when we're growing up, we have to idolize the people who are raising us. Even if they're out of control. We can't face the facts of the downfalls and the shortcomings of the people who are our caretakers. when we're growing up. We have to put them on a pedestal in order to survive psychologically. So we put them up on this pedestal and then they say something negative about us.

Jennia: Mhm.

Randy Lyman: And we believe it. And it's not true. And even if they just say something casually, and they didn't mean it as negative and we internalize it as negative—We're trying to figure out the world. Mostly zero to seven years old, and then seven to 14, and 14 to 21, and so on. But those first 21 years, we've unfairly put them on a pedestal. They don't necessarily belong on that pedestal, but we had to to survive. Then when they say something negative, we internalize it and we make it out to be the truth and it's not. So we're told lies and we believe the bs.

Jennia: Mhm. Yeah. One of the phrases that you included in the summary was, "Engaging with our emotions intentionally." And I wondered if you could provide an example of, let's say, someone who used to deal with them in a "typical" way—and I'm using air quotes there—and then what it would look like when they then instead engage with it intentionally.

Randy Lyman: Well, for me, when I'm writing, when I'm sitting down and writing, and I have emotions coming up, I wanna go eat. And that's my distraction. Or I wanna go check my email. Or whatever it might be, I'm using whatever I can just to avoid feeling what I'm feeling. And I just explained to you one simple exercise I can do any time. And yet me, who's been working on this for 35 years, I still avoid my emotions sometimes because our ego wants to avoid pain.

Jennia: Mhm.

Randy Lyman: And it's not always fun to go through, but it always feels better afterwards. So just be aware of the things we use to distract ourselves. And I think writing, whether it's freeform journaling or writing lists, depending on whether somebody's right brain or left brain, write down what you think you're feeling and get back to it later. And the time will come when you feel, "Okay, now I'm ready to deal with this." And it'll be there waiting, and then you can work through it. We don't have to force it. And being aware of it is the first step.

Jennia: Yeah. That is so refreshingly simple, by the way, because (laughs) when you first hear a lot of these phrases, we're talking about unhealed emotions or emotional baggage. I think it's so easy to envision some scenario where you're laying on a psychoanalyst's couch for years and years of your life and picking apart these memories that are just barely half-there and trying to decipher whatever it is that happened to you and that they do want you to fully understand and have this deep-seated knowledge of whatever it was and how it shaped you. But no, that's just . . . Yeah! (laughs)

Randy Lyman: Just feel it! No understanding is necessary. So EFT tapping is one of my go to's. And EFT tapping opens energy meridians in the body. It involves our mind guiding the process. It involves our physical body. And then setting the intent for the emotions to come through. And usually when I do tapping, I'll get, like, a little tear. And to me, that tear is as effective as bawling for two minutes.

Jennia: Wow.

Randy Lyman: And so that's something that really works well for me. And I try and do tapping at least a few times a week, if not more often. And I don't have to understand where the pain is, I just need to release it. It doesn't have to be complicated and we never have to understand it with our mind.

Jennia: Wow. You also wrote that emotions are the power source behind everything we create. And I'd love for you to elaborate on that, too, especially given who the audience is for this podcast.

Randy Lyman: Well, our emotions are bigger than time and space. So we have—in science we have the speed of light. And it takes, like, eight minutes from light to get from the sun to us. And we think that's fast, but when we feel anything, it is instantly reflected and felt throughout all that is.

Jennia: Mmm.

Randy Lyman: We connect with the higher energies and higher source and we connect with other people. Through our emotions, it happens instantly at the deepest level.

Jennia: Yeah!

Randy Lyman: And the only way to have a life where we feel good is to feel (laughs). And so that feeling part is kind of confusing—it was for me. But that's the reason I wrote the book. I want people to be able to understand that this is not that complicated. There's some simple ways to approach it. And there is light at the end of the tunnel. And that's why I wrote the book, The Third Element.

Jennia: Mhm. Well, and how might some creatives see a change in their output or even the quality of their work once they begin connecting with their emotions in this way?

Randy Lyman: They're gonna help—It's gonna help them get through their doubts. We all have some level of doubt, some level of deservedness, some level of worthiness, and that is held on to through our emotional wounding. And when we are able to work through the wounds, then that fades away.

Jennia: Mhm. Yeah. Imposter syndrome is something that you just see come up all the time and, "How do I get over this? How do I defeat it? Can I defeat it?"

Randy Lyman: Well, I'm a pretty smart guy and I worked  . . . and that is so limited relative to what any one of us can do by becoming aware of our emotions and being bold enough to go on that journey of healing. And take it one step at a time, at whatever speed works for you, and I can guarantee you're gonna find some positive results and you're gonna feel better and you're gonna find more success. It's really the only way to move past your own internal limitations.

Jennia: Oh my gosh, yes! Well, thank you so much for this uplifting conversation, Randy! And where can listeners find out more about you and also more about your book?

Randy Lyman: Well, the easiest way is on my website and that is randylyman.com. It's R A N D Y L Y M A N.com. And there they can find links to buy the book, they can find workbooks, they can find free offers, links to social media, and links to a community they can join for free to be the first to hear about new things coming out. And I have more books on the way. So—

Jennia: Well good!

Randy Lyman: —come take a look and click on the "how to" section, and there I share a lot of things in the "how to" section about what has worked for me.

Jennia: Are you able to share anything about any of these upcoming books?

Randy Lyman: The next one is about a young woman who grew up in a small town. She went looking for happiness and success in the big city, and lost her job and came back to the small town and worked through her relationship issues with her mother, her estranged sister, and with her deceased father. And through her journey, she finds a deeper part of herself. And it's really a fun story. It's kind of come through me because I'm not a 23-year-old woman (both laugh)—

Jennia: I guessed that (laughs).

Randy Lyman: —But I am open to—and writers know this! There's messages that come through us and when we can open up to those messages and share those, then we can touch readers in ways that the logic and reason doesn't touch. And so I'm really excited! I'm working on the final edits of this book and it'll come out later this year.

Jennia: Aww, very exciting! Well, thank you again.

Randy Lyman: Thank you. This has been a lot of fun.

Jennia: And thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes for additional information, including all of Randy's links. And then please join me next week when Patrick Tumblety will be here to tell us how to write believable self-defense scenes. Thanks again!