THE JOY SPIRAL
Transformational Women’s Circle
Recharge, reconnect and build your next chapter from a place of joy instead of struggle.
Feel like you’ve spent a lifetime caring for everything and everyone else?
Are you feeling burned out and disconnected?
Is the idea of ‘joy’ like a foreign land?
Join a transformational circle for women and femme-identifying folk to reconnect to your truest self, reclaim your joy, and unlock the healing it brings for both you and things you care about most.
I’m going to bet you care deeply and that you always have.
You show up: for your family, your clients, your community, the causes that matter.
You’ve built a life around being useful, dependable and doing good. But somewhere along the way, the reason you’re doing all this has gotten buried under the weight of doing it.
You’re not sure exactly when it happened.
Maybe it’s perimenopause?. Maybe it’s the state of everything.
But it’s gone from feeling fulfilling to being exhausting in a way that sleep doesn’t fix.
(And in your quiet moments you think maybe you could burn it all to the ground).
Everything, from your body and hormones to your heart and mind, seems to be asking the same question:
IS THIS IT? Is this all there is?
The old way isn’t working anymore.
You just don’t know what to replace it with yet.
Meantime, opportunities are going missing.
You can’t remember the last time you felt truly joyful.
And the causes and people you care about are starting to feel the cost.
Here’s what happens when you ignore your signals
Deprioritising your joy might feel selfless, but it costs you.
It impacts your physical health and your emotional wellbeing. It impacts how effective you can be. And it costs you in your work, the people you’re trying to help and the things you care about.
As the years pass, busyness can fill the space where your joy should be. You might even be okay at managing the exhaustion. But it’s never in a way that actually fills your well. You might be able to ignore what’s not working but one day you look up and realise that time has passed, nothing has changed, and now there’s less energy than ever to figure it out.
Burnout isn’t just tiredness. It’s a slow erosion, built over years of not knowing how to connect to and prioritise your joy. It can get so bad that you can’t even name what your joy is.
I’m here to tell you that your joy isn’t a luxury.
And it’s not a nice meal or a glass of wine at the end of the day or the occasional night out.
Your joy is a map to what matters to you most.
It reveals the ways of being, living, relating and working that make you feel most alive.
The ways that feed you.
The Joy Spiral has been specifically designed for women just like YOU.
I created it to help you find your way back to your joy so you can unlock the healing it brings for you (and the people and things you care about most.)
“Thank you, Vicki, for weaving your magic! I really loved what you brought together for our group of women. Bringing more authentic joy into our world alongside the difficult social justice and environmental work many of us care passionately about - in these challenging times - is a truly radical act!”
Past Participant
What the Joy Spiral Is
The Joy Spiral is a small, intimate circle of women and femme-identifying folk - limited to just 8 in each program - who come together across four facilitated half-day sessions to do something radical:
Reconnect with what brings them alive and use their joy as a map to build what comes next.
Using shamanic journeywork, archetype mapping, storytelling, shadow work, embodiment, applied improvisation and circle work, I’ll help you move from burned out and disconnected to grounded, clear and joyfully energised for the next chapter of your life.
This program is currently 100% in-person and based in Melbourne, Australia.
It is also carefully curated to ensure the best experience for all participants.
The first step is to register your interest so we can have a chat.
(Stay tuned for an online offering launching later this year.)
This is especially for you if:
You’ve spent your life caring for others, and you’re quietly exhausted by it
You have empathy fatigue but can’t stop caring
Perimenopause is kicking your arse and you’re SO ready for something different
You’ve been the responsible and capable one, but you can’t remember the last time you’ve done anything really transformative for yourself
You’ve felt called to something different for a long time, but you don’t know where to start
You’re not interested in hustle culture, toxic positivity or being fixed. You want to be met as you are and empowered to find your own way
“If you’re thinking about embarking on the Joy Spiral journey but aren’t quite sure… I’d encourage you to trust the intuition that brought you here…
From my very first conversations with Vicki about the program… her calm presence, genuine curiosity and remarkable intuition created a sense of trust that made it easy to follow what felt like a quiet but certain calling…
The Joy Spiral isn’t a self-improvement program in the conventional sense… It’s about creating the conditions to reconnect with who you’ve always been.
Vicki has an extraordinary gift for bringing together the right people, asking the right questions and holding a space where people feel safe enough to truly see one another. I began the journey with strangers and left with deep friendships and immense gratitude. Through sharing stories and witnessing each other’s experiences, we discovered meaning that was richer through the process of discovery together.”
Past participant
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A transformational journey across four facilitated half-day sessions kicking off in August 2026.
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We’ll go on a shamanic drumming journey to call in your joy and then dance with and meet the shadows that you find. We’ll name what’s blocking you, identify the gift the shadow is offering you and learn how to work with it, not against it. (Sunday, 30 August 2026)
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We’ll play with the possibilities and pathways available to you and identify the archetypes and story that unlock your greatest joy. You’ll develop your Personal Joy Archetype Map (PJAM) and explore how joy comes to life for you every day and the healing it brings. (Sunday, 13 September 2026)
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We’ll dive deeper into our shadow work, and experience what taking joyful action feels like in our bodies. Using your PJAM, we’ll look at the steps we need to take to get beyond fear, and practice that in the room together. (Sunday, 27 September 2026)
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Learn how to hold yourself and others with compassion and how to nourish yourself and your joy. We’ll mark the culmination of our journey together with a collective celebration of everything we’ve unlocked and achieved. (Sunday, 11 October 2026)
KICKING OFF IN AUGUST 2026
What’s included:
16 hours of facilitated workshopping and circle
A personal joy archetype map that’s yours to keep and use for life
Community and connection with values-aligned women and femme-identifying folk
What’s app support between sessions
Access to a growing alumni community
A sisterhood that doesn’t end when the program does
“While it isn’t my usual ‘thing’, when I saw the post advertising The Joy Spiral, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Although my life was full of things I loved, I was struggling at the edge of burnout, and the things I usually enjoyed felt like duties and tasks to achieve. I decided to do something outside my usual and contacted Vicki about signing up.
The program wasn’t what I expected; it was so much more.
It gave me the space to recognise why I was struggling to connect with my joy and was an important reminder that doing so wasn’t a selfish act, because it transforms the way you show up in your life for the things that matter.
Doing this work with a small group of women in the safe and magical space created by Vicki was truly beautiful, and it’s an experience I continue to benefit from and treasure months down the track.”
Past participant
Meet your facilitator
Hi! I’m Vasiliki! (But you can call me Vicki)
I’m the founder and creative director of The Story Shaman. I’m a storyteller, creative guide, and circle holder who weaves myth, story, strategy, improvisation, spirituality and ritual to help big hearted women who have spent a lifetime caring for others to reconnect with their joy, reclaim their medicine, and take action with courage.
Deeply intuitive, with over 30 years’ experience in storytelling, improvisation, communications, spiritual practice and facilitation, I love creating spaces that are deeply held and joyfully alive... where curiosity is welcomed, creativity and courage is unleashed, and community becomes a living, breathing force for good.
I’m also a published writer and commentator. You can catch me every third Wednesday on ABC Radio Melbourne’s, Spin Doctor program on ABC Drive.
“This program arrived at a significant crossroads in my life after a challenging period in my career. It reminded me that my circumstances are not who I am. Beneath the uncertainty was a strength, a certainty and a quiet energy that had never disappeared… it had simply become obscured. The Joy Spiral became a path back to that knowing.
What Vicki creates is difficult to describe because it’s less about the activities themselves and more about what emerges between them. Through thoughtful experiences, meaningful conversations and her extraordinary ability to hold space, something shifts.
If you’re fortunate enough to have met Vicki and discovered the Joy Spiral, I’d trust the path that brought you here…”
Past participant
The investment:
16 hours of in-person workshopping and circle
8 weeks of What’s App support and between session personal guidance
Your own personal Joy Archetype Map to take away
Lifelong connection to values-aligned community
Alumni priority access and pricing for follow-up workshops
EARLY BIRD PRICE
Just $1800
Apply before 7 August 2026 and pay only $1800 for the full program.
FULL PRICE after 7 August 2026
$2000
Apply after 7 August and pay $2000 for the full program.
BY INSTALMENT
8 weekly instalments of $275 (total $2200)
Pay in eight weekly instalments of $275 for a full cost of $2200 for the program.
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The intimacy and depth of this work depends on everyone in the circle turning up for each other. If you have a genuine conflict on one date, reach out and we can discuss options. But this is not a drop-in program. Your commitment is part of what makes this work.
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Past participants have reported genuine therapeutic benefits from completing the Joy Spiral program, and have found it immensely empowering to do alongside other more traditional therapy. I do not however claim to be a therapist, nor is this program positioned as therapy.
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I understand that it can be hard to make genuine time for yourself, particularly if you’re used to being there for everyone else. But there will never be a perfect time to invest in your own joy. And the cost of waiting, is another year living from the same depleted place.
If however, you really want to participate but you have genuine clashes, let’s talk. -
Investing in yourself can feel like a challenge when you’re used to putting everyone else first. But there’s also a cost to you of not reconnecting to your joy and continuing to live from a depleted and exhausted place. If the time or cost is making you pause, ask yourself why you think you’re not worth it, and then remind yourself that you absolutely ARE.