I generally started out by observing in the real world that almost everything and everyone is seriously flawed and in particular that most humans are both flawed and in denial of being flawed. This led me to be unwilling to blindly trust anything from anyone and the more I looked into traditional views, the more I found them to be epically unsubstantiated and full of holes.

However, I didn't really draw any conclusions on any big topics until I dropped out of society and started researching/healing full time after I had some extreme (and extremely rare) spiritual experiences around the age of 21. I didn't think it would be possible to find the full truth about the big questions in life, except I eventually was guided towards the right places to look for answers. I don't have concrete proof that there are no such 'breathing in and breathing out of God' type of cycles that I can easily show you - but the most useful books I know of (which I have used to heal my crippled spine, among other things) provide insights into this.

They were channelled between 1984 and 2010 by a lady not so far from where you are. She understood them to be provided by God in the first person. Neither she nor I believed that was even possible, but honestly - if God was going to send some books then I would want them to be these books. There are some parts in them that I cannot prove or disprove, but the parts that I can test out at this point in my evolutionary process are accurate and I've never heard them said by humans outside of this group/book.

I suspect you might at first assume they were written by a 'lower god' or some other entity - but that is addressed in there too. They are 1400 pages long. The author is Ceanne DeRohan and the book series is called 'Right Use of Will' - she also wrote another book that was her own thoughts, not channelled, called 'Feelings Matter', which also provides great insights into self and healing.

I remain open on most topics generally to some extent - but these books and connection remain the most reliable content I can share on the topic. I can help you get access to them if you want to check them out - though, they are not for everyone - in particular, 'spiritual' people tend to get magnetically repulsed from them because they are in so much emotional denial and unconsciously refuse to get real. ;)