Spherical Thinking is less easily defined than Linear Thinking. I think that in order to process what I’m trying to explain we need to look at the photo above which represents a time line of your life, your linear thinking life, punctuated with spheres representing spherical thinking. As you step forward on your life’s journey, you continue to encompass being a part of timeless presence in which you connect most fully with yourself and others. I am not an expert on Spherical Thinking and I probably use the term loosely to indicate the way I think, so please take this into account. To me, spherical thinking is defined as being aware of the life connections between myself and others with each step on my own life’s journey. It is to ‘see’ without consciously stopping to look around and to innately ‘feel’ how my actions, inactions and words can and do affect others and to modify if needed in order to hold peace in my heart. It’s a oneness, a connective spiritual alliance which grasps the concept of presence (past, present, future) and the basic concept of love (loving ourselves and others). It’s a conscious choice and effort to engage spherically all the time.
Truthfully, I have yet to be able to live this way 24/7 but I continue to strive to on this life journey. For me spherical thinking also requires that we live ‘outside the (nothing) box’ and allow feelings to surface in order to clear out wounds from long ago. We live in the present time, (with knowledge that time is limitless, so our past, present and future can connect swiftly and easily, all at the same time to give us a bigger picture). We are also aware of what’s going on around us for the ones with whom we are familiar. We can ‘see’ their heartlight even behind the closed doors that they present to the world. We ‘know’ the hurting that they are experiencing and we adjust our own perceptions in order to not ‘push buttons.’ This makes the connections easier for them (and us) without sacrificing our own integrity. By monitoring our own actions, inactions and words, we connect more easily with others and find a common ground which allows for healing.
Oh my, does any of this make sense to you? I feel like I’ve dropped us all down the rabbit hole and that I’m not explaining myself properly! Bottom line is this: I imagine spherical thinking to be a way in which we live presently as much as we can, taking into account our connections to ourselves and to others with whom we come into contact. We allow the feeling of oneness without ego to intrude into our thinking and we live a lifetime with bliss, gratitude and love.
The Trouble with Spherical Thinking is that we can get caught up in the vortex of our own spherical tornado and get lost in the shuffle without focus. Linear thinking is supercharged focused living, whereas spherical thinking albeit focused, also deals with emotion, life and connections which are blurry. The trick here is to keep the focus of moving forward all the while with a spherical mind-set.
Society for the most part is linear driven and so to stand out spherically is to be looked upon as different. There’s a bit of fearlessness in spherical thinking. To voluntarily move outside the limits of your life and the self-imposed boundaries that we have set, is to be unconventional in some others’ minds and that difference, that divergence can be misunderstood.
It’s like the linear thinkers are the hunters and the spherical thinkers are the gatherers of life ~ each type is important to our world. That’s not to say that it’s gender typical. It’s simply how the brains work. It can even be that there are combinations of linear and spherical thinking in your life, times when you change from one type of thinking to another depending on the circumstances. It isn’t that one way of thinking is right or wrong. It simply is and we are all different in the way we function and tolerate thinking out of our comfort zones. That’s part of what makes us so unique and interesting when we connect with each other. Each person shares a bit with the other person’s heartlight to enrich our own being and to enrich theirs in a communal way. Sometimes what we get is less/more than we give which allows energy to flow more precisely. We receive what we need at that moment, with the full knowledge and understanding that when we ebb, more flows to us and vice versa. It is trusting in the oneness that makes the energy of spherical thinking continue to expand.
Filling life with kindness and compassion is a habit which I intend to keep. This is not to say that I don’t get frustrated, angry or resentful, but the more I learn about myself, the increased awareness allows me to let go and release the commonality of anger and to represent a more loving, forgiving, happier life. I am finding that this serves me well with relationships, business and life in general.
So, tell me…Are you a Linear Thinker? A Spherical Thinker? Or a Combination?
Shine On!
xo
Misifusa's Blog 
I absolutely love this post and the concept of spherical thinking! I definitely do both, too, but I love “feeling” of awareness of the whole, my part of the oneness of it all so much more than when I focus linearly on my own mission. That connected awareness gives me the understanding of all of the interpersonal relationships of my life. That thinking brings me to a place of compassion, forgiveness, acceptance and love of others knowing we are all just doing the best we can….and that gives me my peace. Thank you for posting this, and have a beautiful ( and spherical) weekend!!
I think it is our human condition Yvonne — we are all capable of spherical thinking, of recognizing the oneness of us all, and the ripple effect of our being present in this world — and then, we like to think it’s all and only about us! 🙂
Ken Wilber’s Integral platform is very powerful too — whereby there are layers and depending upon where we stand and on which quadrant we position our sight, we can see either one dimensionally or multi-dimensionally the interconnectedness, and relatedness, of all.
I too love this post!
I think I go through phases of each type of thinking, depending on where I’m at and what I’m trying to do. I wonder if one type of thinking is more one on one (relational, coaching) and the other is more bigger picture (systemic)?
Diana xo
I stands to reason that spherical thinking is harder to explain than linear, as in most things, a straight line is easier to follow than a curvy one yeah? Have no fear that you were not getting your thoughts across. Loud and clear and makes absolute sense. Actually, knowing my innate spherical-ness…I hadn’t stopped to realize that I too, at times, am a linear thinker. It’s almost a ‘duh’ moment because, of course, there are times we are both. I wonder though…do linear thinkers have moments of spherical thinking? Without prompt that is? I imagine they do, but can ONLY imagine, as my hubby needs to be pushed off track to see the connections of life around him. I just may have to expand this conversation a bit with him…and I have an inkling, a tiny tickle in my brain, about why he cannot do it on his own. I may be wrong, but after 32 years with me, you’d have thought he would have developed some sense of how everything is connected, and understand why I do/see/think/feel/act and react the way I do. Hmmm….you have given me a lot to consider my friend, as always. xo
Both this post and the Linear Thinking post peaked my interest. I printed both down to read and process fully before I attempt to identify which best reflects who I am. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Yvonne! You summed it up for me! And yes it all makes sense, trusting who we truly are in this oneness is integration, as we journey fully into mutidementional beings, for those of us on this journey, this makes total “sense” Heart to Heart Robyn. Thank- you for trusting your inner self to share this with all.
I’m not sure…i get very caught up with the needs and emotions going on around me, and will take queue, if you will, from what is needed at the time. If things are over emotional and need to get reigned in, I can get linear very quick. If i see that emotions, or even input is getting squashed because of over focused linear drivers, I am impelled to introduce some spherical empathy and interruption. Life needs balance, and you can’t always balance effectively walking a tight rope, especially a linear tightrope! Hope I’m not too far off base with your topic.
I’ll take the ‘thinking’ that deals with emotion, life and connections and all the blurriness that comes with that! Maybe we’re better at thinking linearly and feeling spherically? Oh, please keep shining on with your kindness and compassion – the world needs you to do just that!
I think I am just here. That’s where I ended up. Just present. Just here. Just me like someone said once ♡♡♡
It’s a tough concept to explain and fully understand. I can plan my day linearly, but experience it spherically. It looks like I’ve made a linear list but in fact, a great deal more has gone into it. There is no separation so even our thinking can’t truly be separate. That’s the illusion. At least that’s my take on it.
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I’ve very spherical; linear people are a mystery to me. How can they NOT see how everything is related? I’m very conceptual and find their fact-based thinking very limited. However, I am related to and work with many linear thinking — so it is a joy to find one of my own kind.
As it is a joy for me to connect with you! ♥
I feel a little behind the times here. I had a dream a couple of nights ago that an old friend of mine challenged me not to think in a “binary” fashion, and I argued that opposites were true, such as right and wrong, but that everything existed on a spectrum between these binary points (grey area). He responded and again challenged me to consider whether those points and the line between actually existed. I told him that that the fact he was telling me my thinking was “wrong” proved that he also believed in a linear system. I woke up before he could answer, but the next day I thought about what his answer might be, and realised he never actually told me I was wrong; that was my concept of what he was telling me. I few days earlier I had witnessed the full moon coming up through the clouds and had made special notice of how the moon, and our earth and the sun are spherical, and how the natural way the Universe seems to evolve things over time is in the shape of a sphere. This came back to mind after my dream, and I wondered if a sphere could be a metaphor for the kind of thinking my friend was suggesting, and bam! I came up with this concept of “spherical thinking” hahaha! … only to find this blog post and many other online references to spherical thinking when I put it in a google search :). I thank my old friend for pointing me here through a dream, and now I believe it is time to write him a long overdue email to thank him for his guidance in my past (we’re talking Highschool) and now in the present through my dream. I wonder if this story captures in some small way the essence of what you were getting at in your post Misifusa, where the linking a dream with a friend from the past and the earth, sun and moon is the spherical aspect of my thinking, and then the fact that in the present time I make a concrete decision to write to my friend, is a moving forward linear type of brain activity? I’m not sure, being very new to the concept! Thank you for your post to help me think on the topic (both spherically and linearly)! 🙂
A
Andrew, I find it fascinating that you dreamt of your friend and through the dream and the processing of it, you are reaching out to him. It comes as no surprise that you are expanding your thinking and researching. I am honored that you wrote to me and found my blog posts. I would like to hear how it goes after you write him the email and what comes of it (if you feel comfortable). Gratitude is such an important ingredient to life and heart expansion, as well as growth. If I can be of help to you, please let me know. I wish you all the best and keep writing down your dreams! 🙂
Hi! To be honest, I’ve never left a comment on a blog post before, nor am I connected to any social media platforms, even though I’m only in my early 40’s. I realize I need to change my “name” in google so I don’t give away my email address to everyone ha!, but fortunately there likely won’t be too many people checking out this post and comments from 5 years ago, and if they do I’m sure it won’t be a problem if those people see my email address ;). Anyway, thanks for responding. I already wrote my friend, and he already wrote me back! He was really glad to hear from me, and gave me an update on his life, and I’m happy to hear his family’s doing really well, despite him and his wife both being nurses. I still think it’s just incredible that I came to the idea of “spherical thinking” from the observation of the full moon a few days ago in combination with this conversation with an old friend in a dream, and then found out that this concept is already a thing and being talked about in such places as your blog. I guess it’s this surreal sequence of events that inspired me out of my comfort zone to write my first blog comment. I don’t know you, but I’m honoured that you are now part of this fun little story unfolding in my life :).
Peace and Love,
A
Hi A! I am honored as well that I am a part of this story unfolding in your life! I am happy that you’re here. I believe that we are all being led to expand our comfort zones in many ways, spherically thinking so it comes as no surprise really when I think about it. 🙂 I am happy that you have reconnected with your friend and I pray that your friend and his wife and all of the nurses will continue to stay protected throughout these trying times. Feel free to reach out and I will help in any way I can. I am glad we’ve connected. Have a great week! P.S. I had read your comment last week but I guess my response didn’t appear so I’m writing again. I apologize for the delay.
Hi there, no need for apology. The timing is actually quite good as today has been rough. I happen to live in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, and I’m sure you’ve heard of the tragedy over the past weekend. I live a couple hours away and it hasn’t directly affected me but we all feel the reverberations of what happened pretty strongly throughout the entire province. On top of that I work as a counsellor in a Hospital, but I’m working from home now, and my technology completely failed today. I went for a 2 hour hike at the end of my work day on an unmarked trail along a river near where I live and didn’t see anyone the whole time. I had a feeling that the natural world is the only thing that makes any sense right now. It was exactly what I needed. So in terms of how you can help, you already did with your new blogpost reminding me of the meteor shower. I’m an avid stargazer, which goes along I guess with my strong admiration and connection with nature and camping, etc… so I will look to the night sky for that extra inspiration this week, and my prayers will go to the families of the victims. Thank you.
A
I am here to help so your message to me was gratefully received. I did hear about the tragedy and my heart-centered prayers go out to all involved. Your choice to go out into nature helps to raise your vibration and to clear the negative out which is good! I love to watch the stars myself and find the peace and quiet of nighttime stargazing a helpful way to stay centered and to lift my energetic vibrations higher. Stay healthy and allow love and light to flow in your life A! ♥