How can you transform stress and anxiety into creative energy?

In this episode, JJ Virgin talks with actor, teacher, and author Josh Pais to explore the surprising connections between emotions, health, and creativity. Josh shares how his struggles with anxiety led him to discover a new way of understanding feelings as vibrations rather than problems to fix. Together, they dive into how presence, play, and embracing the full range of human sensations can unlock creativity, authenticity, and better health.

Josh Pais is an actor (Joker, TMNT, and 150+ other film and TV credits) and the creator of Committed Impulse, a training method used by top performers, entrepreneurs, and Navy SEALs to master presence and overcome anxiety. His book, Lose Your Mind: The Path to Creative Invincibility, teaches practical tools to unlock creative flow and emotional resilience. Josh blends science and storytelling to help people show up fully alive—on stage, in business, and in life.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

(01:21) How Josh’s early struggles with anxiety and auditioning led him to reframe emotions as vibrations in the body.

(05:20) Why suppression is just another form of managing emotions. 

(06:49) The seven-to-twelve-second window that allows emotions to naturally shift when you fully feel them.

(10:09) How I experience anxiety differently by leaning into the sensation rather than resisting it.

(12:41) The greatest myth of our time: that emotions can be categorized as good or bad.

(18:35) Why suppressing emotions can create “lock boxes” in the body that eventually manifest as tension or illness.

(25:38) Josh’s four access points to presence that anyone can practice daily to reconnect with their body and creativity.

(37:53) The one simple shift you can make today to open yourself to creativity.

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