When Life Comes Full Circle
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
Written by Sarah Veall, Transformational Coach
Sarah Veall is a transformational coach, inner child practitioner, and Reiki practitioner. She is the author of "Trust", a story of how she reconnected with her true essence and a state of wholeness and healed holistically, following a cancer diagnosis in 2020.
20 August 2020. It is a date that will forever be etched into my memory. In the morning, my eldest son received his General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) results. It was a moment of pride, celebration and excitement as we watched him take another step into his future. That afternoon, my world changed. I was diagnosed with cancer.
I could never have imagined, sitting with that diagnosis six years ago, where the journey would take me. Now, six years on, I find myself looking back at those years and feeling something I hadn't anticipated, closure. My life is almost unrecognisable from the life I was living in 2020.
Six years of transformation
My cancer diagnosis became the beginning of a profound journey of questioning, listening and learning. Rather than simply accepting that my body had somehow betrayed me, I became curious about what it might be trying to tell me.
I began exploring healing differently. I became fascinated by the wisdom of the body and by the connection between our mental, emotional, physical and energetic selves. Most importantly, I began learning to listen to the whispers of my intuition.
The journey took me into places I might never have explored without that diagnosis. It challenged beliefs I had held about health, healing and myself. It encouraged me to slow down, become more aware of what was happening within me and start trusting my own inner knowing.
Eventually, that journey became my first book, "Trust", my story of learning to trust myself, my body and my intuition as I explored my own holistic healing journey.
And now, six years later, I am more well than I've ever been. I've let go of versions of myself that were built around coping, pleasing, performing and trying to be who I thought I needed to be. I've learned to question, I've learned to listen inwardly, and I've learned that sometimes our bodies communicate what our conscious minds haven't yet been willing to acknowledge. I've also learned that healing can be about coming home to yourself.
Then there is the date
There is something rather extraordinary about the fact that this six-year anniversary coincides with another family milestone. On 20 August 2020, my eldest son received his GCSE results in the morning, and I received my cancer diagnosis in the afternoon. Six years later, my youngest son has just received his GCSE results. Same date, different son, completely different me.
It feels almost as though life has brought me back to the same point on the calendar so that I can look at it from an entirely different perspective. What felt like an ending in 2020 now feels like the completion of a chapter.
Is there a six-year eclipse cycle in astrology?
Technically, there isn't a formal six-year eclipse cycle. But there is a fascinating cyclical quality to eclipses, and when I look at my own life through that lens, the timing feels incredibly significant.
From 2020 to 2021, we experienced the Gemini and Sagittarius eclipse cycle, beginning in June 2020 and continuing through December 2021. The current 2026 to 2028 Leo and Aquarius eclipse cycle carries very different symbolism, but perhaps that is precisely what makes it so interesting.
Eclipses are often viewed astrologically as accelerators and turning points. They can bring something into consciousness, initiate change or expose something that then takes years to unfold. They don't necessarily create an event that begins and ends at the time of the eclipse. Sometimes they open a door, and then we spend years walking through it.
So perhaps what I'm feeling isn't the literal completion of a six-year eclipse cycle, but rather the completion of a chapter that began around 2020. It began with a cancer diagnosis and took me through fear, questioning, healing, awakening and, ultimately, a much deeper relationship with myself.
From trust to the heart
The current Leo and Aquarius axis feels particularly poignant to me. Leo is associated symbolically with self-expression, heart, identity, creativity and being seen. Aquarius is associated with authenticity, freedom, community and our relationship with the collective.
And suddenly, the question feels very different from the one I was asking six years ago. Back then, perhaps the question was, "How am I going to get through this?" Now it feels more like, "Who have I become, and what am I now ready to step into?"
That feels like a very different question because I believe growth is about shedding the versions that were never really us in the first place.
There's something else coming
As I look back at the woman who received that diagnosis six years ago, I feel enormous compassion for her. She couldn't possibly have known what was waiting for her on the other side, and she didn't know that her experience would become Trust.
She didn't know that she would discover new ways of understanding healing and that she would learn to trust her intuition in ways she never had before. She certainly didn't know that six years later, she would be preparing to launch another book.
Paddy Apollo and Me. A very different book, but one that has emerged from the same journey. It is a book about love, loss, connection and the extraordinary relationship we can have with our animals, and for me, my precious cats.
In many ways, it feels like the next expression of everything I've learned about listening, connection and the wisdom that exists beyond what we can rationally explain. Trust came from the beginning of my healing journey. Paddy Apollo and Me feels like it is coming from the other side of it, and maybe that's why this moment feels so significant.
Look at that for closure
Six years ago, my eldest son received his GCSE results, and I received a cancer diagnosis. Six years later, my youngest son receives his GCSE results, and I am living a life I couldn't have imagined then.
I have written and published a book, I am preparing to launch another, I am more well than I've ever been, and I have become much more deeply connected to myself.
So I don't know whether the universe works in neat six-year cycles. But I do believe there is something powerful about recognising patterns, thresholds and moments of completion.
Sometimes we need to stop and look back to realise just how far we've travelled, and maybe that's what this eclipse energy is inviting me to do, to honour the chapter that began in 2020 and acknowledge everything it taught me, to release the version of myself that belonged to that chapter and to step into what comes next with an open heart.
Read more from Sarah Veall
Sarah Veall, Transformational Coach
Sarah Veall is a transformational coach, inner child practitioner, and Reiki practitioner. She is the author of "Trust", a story of how she reconnected with her true essence and a state of wholeness and healed holistically, following a cancer diagnosis in 2020. Sarah is passionate about empowering others to love their whole 'self' in order to access a state of wellness where the body can heal itself.
