Notes for the Up Until Now Poem
Up Until Now Poem Notes: Written January 26, 1996 at Timberlane. I've been using the handy phrase "up until now" to perform surgical removal of limitations in myself for some 18 years or so and have never thought to devote a poem to it, up until now.
In teaching others how to use the phrase I've noticed that it's not just enough to tell them to say the phrase because if I do, they come back with such abominations as:
Up until now I've been unable to do X. (Problem is: they state the limitation as the last thought and get to keep it. They always anchor the saying of X with a gallows' smile. Watch for it, you'll see it.)
I've been unable, Up until now, to do X. (Same problem: they again state the limitation as the last thought and get to keep it. The intrepid ones usually get it closer to the end of the sentence on the second try.)
I've been unable to do X up until now. (Problem is: they say up until now' very tersely as though it were foul tasting cough syrup to be swallowed quickly and forgotten about.)
No, each of the above three ways are merely ruses to keep one's limitation and prove that here again is another way of changing that doesn't work. Once you work through all three of these ways and still want to give it a chance, state your limitation, take a deep breath at the comma, and follow it immediately by up until now' as you imagine that the limitation has been magically lifted from you as by a swift pickpocket. One instant it was there, and the next, gone without a trace. And it will stay gone unless you work to retrieve it and put it back in your psyche's pocket of tricks to avoid change.
I hope you get this far, although I warn you that few have, up until now. Anyway, if you get this far, you may want to keep using the magic phrase every time you state a limitation from now on. If some folks look at you strangely when you say it two or three times in the same conversation, don't. Say it once aloud and the other times silently. It works just as well silently. (Another magic phrase you may want to add to your bag of tricks for change.)
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