Welcome to UK Pagan

I have also struggled to understand what I really feel about a god and after 50 years it suddenly came to me. I have been a pagan all my life and not realized, why, because it has never been introduced to me. I love being outdoors amongst wild spaces have a strong kinship with and an appreciation of wildlife and have now come to understand my god is in fact mother nature. She is real and in great need of our help, Christianity has in fact never loved this reality and this is why the original faith of our islands has been hidden from us. I suspect that most parts of the world originally had nature based faiths and have had it drummed into them that this was wrong and that they should worship a Abrahamic religion. I have always believed I was C of E, because that was what I been  told ,but I have never had any feeling of a Christian god and now I know what I really believe in , it is a great feeling and can happily look forward to embracing my faith.

On 4/20/2019 at 5:36 PM, Pearlbrook said:

It's knowing when the silence is a "working silence" during which the client is thinking, digesting information, learning to accept their thoughts and experiences, and experiencing a therapeutic benefit, and when it's an "awkward silence" when the client doesn't know what to say and feels awkward.

My experience was definitely the latter, however, as I mentioned, in the long run it is this experience from which I have felt the longest term effect. And surely positive when I look at it as I can link it to being my own person and reducing down my unthinking reliance on fitting in with other people's expectations and conversely becoming empowered to examine my own experiences and thinking.

On 4/20/2019 at 5:36 PM, Pearlbrook said:

I let the theory empower me and recognise that I have great spiritual power over myself and my reality.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12798261/

In the abstract above, Jeannarod discusses the way that sensory information sets are correlated in the brain to enable a development of a sense of ownership of the physical body and actions with a sense of agency which means one develops a sense of having separate and personal intentions which are manifest in one's behaviour. These two enable a sense of independent self to develop. I think , Moonsmith, you refer to this in watching an infant grow and realise it's individuality.

It is a similar process , as I see it, in a psychological and spiritual sense, to develop one's own sense of independence with regard to choices in viewing, for example,  one's spirituality or morality or beliefs. These being facets of an  independant ( ie. "spiritually sovereign") self with a sense of ownership and agency for one's paradigm, values, principles and beliefs.

This process can involve disentangling unwanted correlations (eg. Past conditionings) and then  identifying patterns in one's current experiences which can be correlated with techniques, exercises, sets of decisions etc in the present.

On 4/20/2019 at 5:36 PM, Pearlbrook said:

The trouble is that when we are under stress our frame-of-reference can become quite rigid and things which don't fit in with our current understanding have to be subconsciously rejected or ignored as if they don't make sense because we can't expand our boundaries and incorporate them. 

I really like this description. I think you have described something that is pertinent in a general sense even when we aren't stressed ( I have a alot of sympathy with the idea that we are a species with trauma, and therefore stress, embedded within our makeup )

Flow

Just a thought if you are researching dragons.  The white dragon has become associated with a white supremacy group whose views would not be acceptable here.  This is nothing to do with white dragons in general nor does it refer to Anne McCaffrey's book "The White Dragon" which is a very gentle tale within the Dragon series.

River

Well, I've tried to reply with a quotation and I can't find how to get the two on the same page!

What I wanted to say was that the only evidence for anything is experience. If you don't feel the Christian god, you don't have compelling evidence. And if you do feel drawn to the Norse gods, that at least prima facie evidence for them. 

19 hours ago, Rob333 said:

I have spent a lot of time focusing on Christianity as I think it has the most compelling evidence. But I don't 'feel' God or Jesus.

Anyway, time and time again I am drawn back to the Norse god's. I don't know why this is as I have never studied any proofs of their existence etc.

Bridges