Shimira Veronica Paris: Healing as Devotion

Shimira Veronica Paris is a healing practitioner focused on trauma. Born in Manhattan and now based in San Diego, she describes herself as an intuitive trauma healer, a role that grew out of her own long healing journey. Both of her parents struggled with alcoholism, and her early life was marked by sexual abuse and domestic violence. Through decades of healing, she found a path that eventually became her life's work.

After spending years focused on her own healing journey, Shimira returned to the domestic violence shelter in New Jersey where she had once been a client and began working there as a counselor. That experience became an important step in the path that eventually led her to trauma counseling and later to the devotional work she leads today. Returning in a new role gave her a different perspective on healing. After years in clinical environments, including trauma counseling at Rady Children's Hospital, she stepped away to dedicate herself fully to what she calls her “devotional work.”

She described her work as an opportunity to support people through experiences she understands firsthand, saying that having "walked through the fire" herself allows her to meet others with a level of empathy that comes from lived experience.

Her perspective on kindness is deeply tied to her understanding of trauma. She meets others in that same space with compassion. Therapists and counselors may learn from books, she noted, but lived experience creates a level of empathy that cannot be taught. Her ability to hold space for those in pain is rooted in gratitude: gratitude for having survived and for being able to guide others toward safety and self-trust.

Shimira also spoke openly about suicide and the importance of creating safe spaces where people can talk about suicidal thoughts without shame. She believes that honest conversations can help people feel less alone and more supported during moments of deep struggle.

Shimira Veronica Paris’s journey illustrates a perspective that kindness begins internally. The compassion we offer to others often grows from the compassion we learn to extend to ourselves. For Shimira, healing and kindness are part of the same practice.

“Kindness begins with self-love and radiates outward.”

Shimira Veronica Paris is an intuitive trauma healer whose work centers on supporting others on their healing journeys through compassion and lived experience. Keep an eye out for more interviews.