REAL TIME HEAL: Long COVID, Fear, and the Nervous System with Marisa Renee Lee

About this episode

Nicole Sachs and Marisa Renee Lee discuss long COVID, chronic symptoms, and the emotional factors affecting healing.

Learn how to JournalSpeak ➡️ ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/2ph33u2s In today’s episode, I sit down with Marisa Renee Lee for a powerful Real Time Heal conversation about long COVID, chronic symptoms, and the deeper emotional landscape that shapes our experience in the body. Marisa brings a lifetime of resilience and insight—navigating profound loss, high achievement, and now an ongoing healing journey that will feel deeply familiar to so many of you. Together, we explore how fear, control, and the nervous system interact in ways that can keep us stuck, even when we’re doing everything “right.” This conversation is about so much more than symptoms. It’s about learning to loosen the grip of outcome-dependence, understanding what true safety feels like in the body, and beginning to live with more curiosity and self-compassion. Marisa’s honesty makes this a deeply relatable and moving session — and her willingness to go there in real time opens the door for all of us. Marisa’s new book, Waiting for Dawn (April 2026), offers solace for anyone living in uncertainty — longing for pain to subside, grief to soften, and healing to unfold. If this conversation resonates, her work…

People in this episode

Host: Nicole Sachs

Guest: Marisa Renee Lee

Topics covered

• long COVID
• chronic symptoms
• nervous system
• emotional landscape
• self-compassion
• fear and control

Keywords

• long COVID
• chronic pain
• nervous system
• self-compassion
• fear
• emotional healing
• resilience

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Waiting for Dawn

More episodes of The Cure for Chronic Pain with Nicole Sachs, LCSW

• When Symptoms Show Up: How to Calm Your Nervous System Before Fear Takes Over · June 12, 2026 · 43 min
• From the Vault: IBS, Emotional Eating, and Body Image with Lisa Schlosberg, LMSW · June 10, 2026 · 1h 7m
• Nicole Sachs on The Jordan Harbinger Show: Chronic Pain, MindBody Healing, and the Questions Skeptics Are Right to Ask · June 5, 2026 · 1h 27m
• From the Vault: IBS and JournalSpeak Revelations with Lisa Schlosberg, LMSW · June 3, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Neuroplastic Pain, TMS, and the Science of Unlearning Chronic Symptoms with Dr. Howard Schubiner · May 29, 2026 · 1h 6m
• From the Vault: REAL TIME HEAL - When Emotions Turn Into Pain: Migraines and Neck Pain with Heather · May 27, 2026 · 58 min