Back in 2016 I wrote a post titled “Why you should write your meta story”. It’s proven to be quite popular so I thought I’d update it for 2020. I also want to include some thoughts on practical visualisation as I practiced that long before I ever heard of meta stories.
I’ll start with a quick recap on the meta story idea. I learned about it from the unlikely sounding book “How to make lots of money for anything, fast” by Stuart Lichtman and Joe Vitale. If you’re interested in the law of Attraction or have seen the movie The Secret, you’ll be aware of their work. Without going into detail about them here (Google them) meta stories are a way of programming your subconscious for success.
Practical visualisation is a very similar thing. With meta stories you start by writing about a successful outcome from your past in great detail. A fairly involved process follows whereby you break this down. You can then begin to influence your future outcomes by channelling that past positive story. Basically if you’ve done it once you can do it again. The trick is to get your subconscious mind on board instead of constantly undermining your conscious mind.
With practical visualisation you are doing a similar thing. When you want something you tend to think about it a lot. Keep that up and reinforce it with actual images of the thing you want and you will generally find a way to get it. As with meta stories the more specific and detailed your visualising is, the faster its going to happen. Disinclined, as I am to believe in any form of magic, I can’t deny the evidence I’ve had of this over the years. Here are a couple of examples.
Visualise It And Get It
Some years ago I decided I wanted a Ford Capri. They were already hard to find classics then but are like hens teeth now. I collected pictures of them. I read everything I could find about them. I pictured the precise colour, engine size, wheels, seat coverings – every detail – that mine would have. Then I imagined how it would look in front of my house, how it would feel to drive, where my friends and I would go in it.
Then as is always the case with practical visualisation, they began to manifest themselves. Whereas once Capris were a rare sight, they now seemed to be everywhere. It’s more likely that I just never paid them much attention until the desire, the need, to own one came upon me. Then of course my Capri “appeared” at a price I could afford in a used car forecourt I happened to pass one afternoon.
This process has worked with everything I’ve ever REALLY wanted (You have to REALLY want “IT” for this to work). It’s brought me my beloved Gibson and Fender guitars, motorbikes, cameras, cars and cats. I could tell you similar stories behind each of them. Visualisation has put me on stage in front of thousands of people playing my own music and signing self produced CDS. Most of all it’s brought me the love of life. Most recently practical visualisation has brought us our ideal home and lifestyle.
Practical Visualisation & Meta Stories
Both meta stories and visualisation often take a circuitous route to delivering the goods. With material things like cars and guitars all they really need to do is to get you focussed on finding the money to buy them. With bigger, genuinely life changing stuff, it’s more complex. Lots of things need to line up for that to happen. Our move to our ideal home is a good way to demonstrate this process.
In 2011 I was laid off. I was 47 and had been a reasonably well-paid and quite successful business development manager for a large audio-visual services organisation. My partner had just started a small business and we had re-mortgaged our plush city apartment to finance it. Not a good time to lose our main income. Moving to the country had always been our aim but now looked impossible.
But I had seen it coming and had started to work on a plan B. I’d been trying a few online business ideas, which had made some money. More importantly this had given me the confidence and the skills to make a living online anywhere. Shortly after joining a Internet mentoring, training and business partnership I made my first high ticket commission and that kind of sealed the deal for us.
We started visiting rural and coastal areas to get a feel for where we wanted to live next. We decided on an area and visited a few properties. During this time we collected the sales brochure pictured below.
Every Picture Paints A Possibility
It was exactly the kind of house and location we had been vaguely visualising for years. Essentially we wanted our old place but set in a big garden overlooking the sea. Now we had an actual picture of it. Then we went to see it. Perfect but just one snag – we couldn’t afford it. But this is when the visualisation process I mentioned began. And this is how it worked. How it became my meta story.
The property market was very slow then so we put the place up for sale with an online agent before we even started looking for a new place. We reckoned it would take at least a year to sell as was the norm in the area. It sold in 10 days and for over our asking price.
We set a long exchange date, which gave us a couple of months to find somewhere to live. Here’s where the obstacles began to pile up and how they toppled liked dominoes before the power of practical visualisation.
Since we couldn’t afford the dream house we chose another place we’d liked in our “B” area of choice. We put in an offer, which was accepted. But then we found that as we were both quite recently self employed, we couldn’t get the mortgage we needed. Even with the considerable equity from our Glasgow place as a down payment we were stuffed. We tried a specialist mortgage consultant who worked with self-employed but without 3 years of accounts there was nothing he could do. At least we had dodged his exorbitant fee.
Maybe The Law of Attraction Is A Thing
Oddly enough this just made us more determined. We decided to go back to our first choice of location and just rent till we worked things out. The house we rented was 3 along from the dream house which was still on the market….. As if to give a thumbs up to our decision I then had the biggest pay day I’d ever had from my online business.
Whilst looking at rental properties we got talking to a local agent who was also a mortgage consultant. When we explained our dilemma he said he was sure he could get us the mortgage we needed. Property sales in the area – all rural areas – are much slower. With the deposit we had and 2 years of accounts he did his magic. He also suggested – with the slow market in mind – that we put in a low offer on the dream house. We did and they accepted it.
So far so Law of Attraction/universe/manifesting eh? But things were to get even more aligned with all that stuff.
Whilst we had the mortgage agreed in principle we had a nail biting, last minute rush to get the necessary paper work from the Tax office before the offer expired. Then the sellers kept asking for more time to move out. Eventually we set a final “take it or we say goodbye”, date. Then something we had not foreseen happened.
The mortgage was in the wrong name!
Watch Those Obstacles Topple Like Dominoes
My partner’s father changed her second name by one letter when she was 4 years old. It had been changed on all her forms of ID but not on her birth certificate or passport – the only forms of ID the lender would accept.
Again with time of the essence and the possibility of losing the house I found an online standard form for changing your name by deed poll. We quickly got this witnessed by a solicitor and shot through to the Glasgow passport office to get that changed too. Somehow we got all this done in time and without having heart attacks butThere was a final little hiccup over collecting the keys. That nearly induced said heart attacks, but at last we were in!
From Visualisation To Reality
Sorry if all that’s been a little long winded but I think it really shows how practical visualisation and meta stories work. For any of it to have happened we first needed the picture of the house and the visits to the area.
Then we needed a means to make it possible financially. We moved to a coastal village in the Cowal peninsula of Argyll and Bute. At least one of us needed to be able to generate income from the get go.
Initially that was me with my online business. We had no idea if my partner’s driving instruction business would have enough pupils here. We knew that If necessary one or both of us could commute to the mainland by ferry as many people here do.
In a further twist to the story the Internet was also how she grew her business here. The same guy who arranged our mortgage suggested she put a message on a local Facebook group. Since the flyers we had made and put up all over the nearest small town were getting no response we gave that a try. On the following day her diary was full and has been more or less since.
Visualisation Vehicles
So for the big stuff in life practical visualisation and meta stories are incredibly powerful. They do however need a vehicle to work perfectly. For us the Internet has been that vehicle. It got our house sold very quickly, provided me with a work from anywhere business and my partner with a market for hers.
A huge part in our story has been played by the people we have attracted in to it and vice versa. I’ve touched on my Internet business but actually its much more than that. It’s where I first heard about meta stories for a start. It’s an incredible community and modern education platform. There’s also if you want it, a very profitable business opportunity. I met them by subscribing for their free video series. Do the same by clicking on the link below and see what can happen.
