Did you know that words represent only 7% of our communication? Most people think that they are communicating well if they're saying the right words, in the right way. While being conscious of our words is important, if you are depending on only words For communication, you are missing 93% of the picture. Furthermore, most people think of communication as speaking, when just as important is the way we listen. The reality is most of our communication is nonverbal. That leaves a lot to be misinterpreted since most of the listening we do is with our ears. One of the foundational tools I teach in my NLP trainings is how to listen with more than just your ears, and communicate with more than just your mouth. Having learned those foundations, I go on to master the 7%... the use of our words to communicate consciously and effectively.
So what is this other 93% of communication that we are missing? Here are three:
Tone of voice - What you communicate can be very differently not only by what you say but how you say it. If you're on Instagram or tick tock, there are a couple of reels that demonstrate this very well by putting vocal variety to the phrase "You good" and the word "dude". Vocal variety is one of the reasons that text messaging and emails can be frequently misinterpreted come on because you can't control the tone that shows up in the head of the reader of your message. NLP training helps you detect (and utilize) the nuances of vocal variety so that you can have more effective and effortless conversations with people.Facial expression - While this is a bit more obvious, facial expressions are a good indicator of how someone is receiving her communication. This is why it's important to observe people as you're talking to them. They are subtle indicators of communication that will alert you to whether you're empowering, inspiring, or offending the person you're speaking to. Learning NLP helps you to be able to detect the micro-expressions in people as you speak so you can respond, gain clarification, or left up their non-verbal response and leave them feeling completely gotten.Body language - As important as facial expressions is body language. Oftentimes people will give you subtle somatic cues as to how they're receiving your communication. Leaning may mean they are more interested while leaning out may indicate they're putting some space between you. Leaning out or leaning back may also mean that they're relaxing into the conversation. The crossing of arms could mean they're closing themselves off to your communication. Noticing these little nuances makes you a more responsive listener even when you're talking.
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One of the most common questions I get asked as from future students today is how I got into NLP and why I decided to learn hypnosis. For those of you reading this who have not yet seen my previous articles, here's a little review. Neurolinguistic programming is a system of processes, language patterns, and tools that help us to be in control of our inner state and outer behavior ultimately giving us the resources to create our lives powerfully. Many people also utilize these tools to help others get past their limiting beliefs, negative thinking, stuck emotions, and unresourceful habits helping them to move past their stuck points in life.
For me, the choice to pursue NLP certification was initially purely a business decision. I felt like the NLP techniques could really benefit my patients and that I could use hypnosis to help the burned-out stressed and overworked professional moms I was seeing over and over again. However, what I did not count on is how learning neurolinguistic programming could make me more effective as a physician simply by giving me expanded personal flexibility of language, thought, and behavior. How exactly did that happen?
By giving me 4 major things:
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Social-emotional learning is a big term that is being used in the educational arena, and it is clear that empowering children's social-emotional learning will improve their resilience, readiness, and ability to thrive in society when they become adults. So, how can NLP training help that? Let's break it down.
As I've shared in previous articles, NLP (which stands for neurolinguistic programming) is the study of how language impacts our brain… what we think, feel and do… and how our language influences our beliefs and behaviors. It takes scientific research of language, cognitive and behavioral science, neuropsychology, and neuroscience and it teaches the tools to increase our mental and emotional flexibility to deal with the circumstances and challenges of our lives.
Now, Imagine children learning in elementary school how to automatically reframe negative thoughts, redirect their own unhelpful behavior patterns, and resolve conflict in a healthy manner. That would be incredible, right? This is the kind of thing my second-grade son is already doing because he is growing up in a household where the tools of NLP are being modeled to him (he is even trying to learn hypnosis to help get him to sleep some nights).
Educators are the gatekeepers of learning for our children. Most children spend 6-8 hours a day at school, and such much of the passive behavioral learning comes from interaction with their teachers, principals, assistant principals, and teaching staff. We know that developmentally children are sponges up until the age of 10 years old (prime learning time), and even after that, they are still soaking up learning by watching what we as adults do.
Furthermore, we know that while most teachers and educators have good intentions when it comes to their students, they may not always have the awareness, capability, or bandwidth to display emotional intelligence nor model trauma-informed interaction with the children. This is where learning NLP can be very valuable for educators. NLP not only increases mental and behavioral flexibility by giving an expanded set of language tools to use with children, it also helps to reframe the adult helping them to deal with their own limiting beliefs, biases, and unhelpful habits, thoughts, and behaviors.
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A common barrier to people exploring the benefits of learning NLP is the false perceptions that people have about it. Similarly, these fears and false perceptions create hesitation for people to learn hypnosis. One of the most common questions I get is "Isn't NLP mind control or manipulation?" Now, while you might be expecting me to rebut and say "why no!!!" the answer is that it actually IS mind control BUT it's that YOU are the one who is doing the controlling. And yes, it IS manipulation of the mind, but (and you might see this coming) you are learning to manipulate your own mind.
Let's break this down.
Most people walk as if they are at the effect of their thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. Now, if it is your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that drive your decisions and behaviors (conscious and unconscious) then you can imagine that most people are walking around as if they completely at the effect of their circumstances and they react and behave accordingly. This is not an empowering place to be.
However, a person who knows and understands truly what NLP is understands that one of the first assumptions of NLP is that you are in charge of your mind and therefore you are in charge of your results. And so someone with perhaps an NLP certification and training who gets into a space of "problem thinking" knows how to use the methodologies and tools of NLP to reframe themselves to a more resourceful place that allows them to move into "solution thinking" so that they can have the best outcome to their challenge. What did they just do? Manipulate their mind!
Let's take a parent who teaches a child how to see things from a different perspective. I was playing basketball with my 7-year-old in the driveway a few months ago, and he was missing shots. After missing about 8 or 9 in a row, he got extremely frustrated. He threw the ball down and said "I'm so bad at this, I'm the worst!" So, instead of running to encourage him, I said to him "Wow you're frustrated aren't you." He replied, "Yes, I feel like I'm never going to be able to make a basket". And I said "Never? Ever? Ever?" and he said, "well, maybe if I practiced I could". I said, "like you practiced Kung Fu and got better… got your yellow and then orange sash?". He perked up and said, "Yeah, I guess". I then said, "so what do you want to do?" He smiled and said…"keep going!" I gave him a few form tips, and he made the next shot…and the next… and the next.
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While there seems to be a magical nature to the way people who are trained in NLP utilize language to create amazing results in themselves and other people, neurolinguistic programming is not magic, it's based in neuroscience.
NLP (which stands for neurolingustic programming) is the study of how language impacts our brain… what we think, feel and do… and how that influences our behaviors. NLP takes scientific research in linguistics, cognitive and behavioral science, neuro-psychology, neuroscience and the psychology of language and it teaches practical effective techniques and tools that allow us to turn the science into daily application that improve outcomes in all areas of life.
A few examples of this include the use of anchoring, strategies, and using the sub modalities of our 5 senses to create change.
Let's first take anchoring:
Back in the 1890's a Russian scientist named Ivan Pavlov did an experiment with dogs. Each day at the same time, he'd ring a bell and when the dogs came he would feed them meat. Now eventually, when he'd ring the bell, the dogs would come already salivating in anticipation of getting the meat. One day Pavlov wondered what would happen if he removed the meat from the equation, so he rang the bell, and the dogs came running but there was no meat. The dogs still salivated. This is because they had associated the bell (dinner bell) with the meat and it created an automatic link in their brain which caused the physiological reaction of salivation.
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I often get asked why I teach time line therapy®, hypnosis, and NLP certification trainings together. Can't I just do one? Is one sufficient? Is there additional benefit to doing them all? The answer to all these questions is yes. Let me first break down the relationship between hypnosis, NLP, and Time Line therapy®.
One could say that the origins of all three of these transformational disciplines began with trance work (now known as hypnosis). Hypnosis as been around since the days of early Egyptians. People used many methods for inducing trance (or mesmerism) including drumming, chanting, various musical instruments, and even slow, intentional hand movements. Trance, which has been called many things over the millennia, is simply a deep state of relaxation, with focused state of concentration which allows an increased state of awareness. From this state many things are possible. For example, many use this state to gain deeper connection with themselves, to travel to deeper levels of consciousness, and to gain new insights into their own feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and experiences. You may have heard of Transcendental Meditation. This is inducing a trance in oneself. Hypnosis is simply another relatively structured way to achieve this trance state usually assisted by a trained professional and utilized for therapy and healing in most cases. There are many styles and methodologies to hypnosis, and while with meditation and self-hypnosis, it could take weeks to months to transform oneself, the highly trained hypnotherapist can help their client create powerful change in just a few sessions. To listen more about hypnosis click HERE
Now, let's talk about NLP. NLP (which stands for neurolinguistic programming) is the study of how language impacts our brain… what we think, feel and do… and how that influences our behaviors. NLP takes the theoretical research of linguistics, cognitive and behavioral science, neuropsychology, neuroscience, and the psychology of language and teaches practical effective techniques and tools on how to apply theory into daily application in all areas of life. Additionally, some of its techniques evolved out of and incorporate the use of hypnotic language patterns to affect deeper and longer-lasting change in a person. This is the reason Neurolinguistic programming is so effective. It's also why it is so difficult to study itself in research because much of the techniques come from applying the combined research of multiple disciplines that surround an aspect of the brain with which we have not developed the technology to measure effectively consistently (like specific thoughts linked to behavior). (Learn more about NLP by clicking HERE)
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Ever since I launched the Mind Re-Mapping Academy, people have been asking me what exactly is mind remapping.
When I talk about mind remapping, I mean reprogramming our minds from the root (from the unconscious level) to be in its more empowering state. It's about getting to the source of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. All of this is based on NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), which is a set of processes and tools to change and nourish the mindset.
What's important to understand is that in the way our mind works, there's something underneath the evident, and that's the unconscious mind which is the one that truly runs our body, everyday actions, and decisions. The unconscious mind is full of things and images we've picked up over the years and don't even realize. We start from childhood and pile on various evidence, while our conscious mind focuses only in the present. The downside is that we take decisions conditioned by what the unconscious mind tells us.
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Have you ever met someone who can just say what they want and it seems to magically happen? Do you know someone like this? Someone who seems to have no trouble manifesting things in their life whether it be new relationships, more money, the perfect job. It seems almost like magic. Some might call it the law of attraction, but in my line of work, we call it mastering the NLP mind. What is the NLP Mind? It's the mindset that anything is possible and that you have all the resources you need to make things happen in your life.
In my work as a Master Practitioner of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), master hypnosis practitioner, an NLP trainer, I have studied what makes people like this effective. I have also trained others to achieve this type of attraction mindset as well. The truth is that this is not magic. Anyone can learn neurolinguistic programming. People often ask me, however, how do I become an NLP practitioner. What is the first step? While some trainers will tell you to jump right into training, I advocate for a little pre-work to make sure that you are clear and moving in the right direction. Here are 3 steps that will move you exponentially faster toward achieving an NLP Mind and getting the life you want.
Get Clear On What's Important To You.
This may seem obvious, but I have talked to countless students and clients who are fuzzy on what they actually want in their relationships, career, and family. When you are unclear about what you want, you send mixed signals to your unconscious mind, and that results in mixed results coming back to you. Here is a simple exercise to do:
Ask yourself "What's important to me about __?" And then insert the areas of life you want to improve. If it's relationships it will sound like "what is important to me about relationships?". Write down everything that is important to you about that thing. Now ask again "What is important about that?" What you are essentially doing is getting your values, and your values will get you clear about what you REALLY want under the surface stuff you are saying is important.After you do that, look at your life and see if your actions are in line with what you want. A good way to look at it is to ask "what am I putting up with that doesn't support what I want?" "Where am I self-sabotaging my life and desires?" This gets you clear on where your actions are not aligned with your desires.
Start Doing the Work of Personal Transformation
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Have you ever been in a situation or maybe a sort of danger where your body just took over without you even thinking about it? That's what we're going to talk about today - "WHAT RUNS IN CONTROLS THE BODY?".
The unconscious mind has been called the mind of the body
We often think we are in control of own our lives. That we are in control of the things that we do. But the question is what is in control? What really runs our decision makings and our actions? We should understand that it is the unconscious mind. Our unconscious mind provides the consciousness and the direction of the functioning of the body. We have these unconscious processes or the things that we do even without thinking about doing them. For instance, we don't need to think about breathing to actually do it, same as when we blink. And also, when we feel that we're hungry and there's some food near us, we can get up to grab some without even thinking about it. It is the unconscious mind that runs our body to do such things.
The unconscious mind is in charge of protecting and preserving the body
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When we want to create lasting change in our lives, we have to look beyond what the conscious mind can do. One of the things I like to talk about is getting into the unconscious mind to look deeper and figure out the things that can slow us down in achieving the result of our lives.
Bringing forward the awareness of the unconscious mind
When we focus our attentions to a certain thing we happen to do other things in an unconscious level. Such as when we listen to some news, we gave enough attention to fully understand what was being said. And so we became incompletely aware of our surroundings or even our reactions. But as soon as someone bring it to our consciousness we then became aware of it.
The unconscious mind stores our memories
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The other day, I had an interaction in which there was some misinterpretation. Instead of asking me directly, the person involved assumed my intention. This assumption made the other person think that I was acting out of malice, and thus became offended.
After discovering that the person was offended during an exchange of words in relationship to the circumstance in question, I shared with the person "Hey, you know you could've just asked me what I meant or thought. It did not have to be this way"
This wasn't someone I knew personally or someone close to me, and normally I would have ignored the whole situation. However, I knew that this was not about me. There was something in the way she talked that made me want to look a little deeper. I got that she was dealing with whatever she was dealing with, and projecting it toward me. However, what my training in NLP has taught me is that there's a higher intention to every communication.
Assumptions Create False Perceptions
Whether it's fear, hurt, anger, or sadness, there's always something deeper behind a negative communication. When I reached out to this young lady who had become offended by a communication that was not even directed at her personally, I tried to understand the reason she reacted in such a negative way. It turns out she based her reaction on some other past experience that led to an unfavorable outcome.
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I've been a physician for many years. I've been practicing for over 15 years in a not so popular specialty: integrative medicine.
Integrative or holistic medicine was not a big thing in Atlanta when I first started. What ended up happening was that I ended up isolating myself from the physician community, since my colleagues weren't in the same specialty.
As I began diving deeper into personal growth, I realized that I needed to get bigger than my immediate space around me - otherwise I was limiting my reach. I began to open up not only to the communities that could empower me, but also the ones I could contribute to.
To those in service industries, entrepreneurs, or in general trying to shine a light in the world… you know that being part of a community is only good as long as you can contribute to it.
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Most of us have heard that Sha’Carri Richardson was suspended after testing positive for THC, one of the components of cannabis. She used cannabis as part of her healing process after learning of the death of her biological mother from a reporter. This resulted in her being stripped of her win in the Women’s 100-meter Olympic trials, and she will not be able to compete in the 2021 Olympics in this race. It’s still up in the air if she will participate in a relay.
Sha’Carri responded with an apology, but it IRKS MY SOUL that she felt like she had to apologize for simply taking care of herself.
Cannabis has always been and always will be medicine!
The record-breaking athlete and Black woman tweeted: “I am human.” It is, in fact, necessary to make that statement. Too often, Black women are seen as survivors that need to overcome tragedy after tragedy, then rise up and keep going without the time or resources to heal like a normal human.
When President Biden was asked about the ruling of the Olympic powers that be, he responded: “The rules are the rules and everybody knows what the rules were going in. Whether they should remain the rules is a different issue, but the rules are the rules.”
Original author: Dr. Kaya
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This week, Dr. Ijeoma Opara and I took the conversation to another level as we talked about fluidity, the "blessing ripples" and the things we do that's limiting us and our capability to do great things.
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Highlights from the conversation:
[00:43] Dr. Ijeoma Opara
· Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Physician and Associate Program Director at Wayne State University School of Medicine
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Something happened while I was practicing yoga this morning, and I had to share it with you. For those of you who do not know, I've been a yogi for 15 years, so I consider myself to be high intermediate level practitioner. I commit 4 days out of my week to my practice. It is something that keeps me focused and yet grounded. This particular morning I was doing a more restorative practice.
As I flowed, I began thinking about how sometimes, when we reach a goal, we have a tendency for to take our foot off the gas. So, as you might imagine, there are some complicated and more advanced postures that come along with an advanced practice.
As with anything, the more challenging asanas come with practice and consistency. And once I'm able to do a posture, there's a mini-celebration that goes on inside of me. However, the discipline comes in staying vigilant in the practice rather than using celebration as an excuse to let up. When I accomplish something new in my practice, I am mindful to not to let the celebration create apathy but rather to use the celebration as momentum and motivation. I utilize that energy, that adrenaline to push me through the next level inside my yoga practice.
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Today I want to share with you a lesson that has been demonstrated to me over and over again, specifically about the unconscious mind.
When the mind is made up and ready to learn, and the heart is ready to receive, the path will be made.
A path made for me
Last year my best friend of 12 years became my partner. The funny thing is, even though we had known each other for 12 years, and he has seen me go through relationships, the birth of my child, the start of all of my businesses… I never saw him as a potential life partner.
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It's important to watch your words, because your words are creative. Now, when I talk about watching your words I not only mean the words that you speak out loud, but also the words that you speak to yourself internally.
And just as important is our focus, because depending on it is how we formulate our language. Are you putting your focus on what you want, or in stuff you don't really care about?
We tend to put our focus in one of two places: Either in what we want to be or what we don't want. How many times have you heard people say "I don't want this"? And then there are others who repeat to themselves "I want THIS", I want to make this much money", "I want to make this impact". You've probably heard examples of both of these, haven't you? Well, for the latter, their vision is forward facing.. that is they are focusing on the future. For the first group, their vision is on the rear view… meaning they are focusing on what they are running away from.
Focus: Occupying your mind with positives, and leaving the negatives aside
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Mind remapping is about reprogramming our minds at the root cause of the unconscious level to be at its most empowering state. It is based in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), rapid transformation and hypnosis. NLP in short is a set of processes and tools you can use daily to supercharge the mind.
The way our mind works, and how we can tweak it
Our mind works in layers. There's always something underneath, and the ultimate layer - the unconscious mind - is what actually runs us at the core. We come up with decisions and actions based on conversations, thoughts, beliefs, and things that we probably don't remember but have been stored in our unconscious mind.
NLP is what helps us access that basic level of our mind. If we have reoccurring problems, with NLP, you can find the root cause and eliminate them at their origin. If we feel like our judgement is clouded by previous experiences, or trauma, you can use NLP to heal those traumas and make decisions based on who we are now.
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I've been semi-retired of clinical medicine for almost 4 years now.Initially, I found myself coaching burned out physicians… helping them to recover, find careers they love, and even start their own businesses outside the box. However, as I listened to my inner voice, I was led back to my healing roots, and that opened up a career opportunity I would have never imagined to have.
Let me back up a bit. I'm a regular old family doc by training. Well, that's the way things began, anyway.I remember choosing the specialty the summer after first year. I worked with a rural family doc who was a full spectrum doc. For those of you who are Family Medicine like me, you know what this means.He did everything!For me that was fascinating. However, as you know, what we see as med students is often a sliver of the real world as it pertains to practice.As I progressed I discovered integrative & functional medicine, and that is where my real love settled as a family physician. However, after 7 years of having a private practice (even one where I set my own hours, and ran my own ship) became less than fulfilling after awhile.I felt like I had outgrown that purpose.
During my time as an integrative practitioner, I trained as a practitioner in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and Hypnosis. I did so because I was coaching patients and I felt it would add to the depth and results of my coaching. I was right. The results were phenomenal. It was at this time I was learning about burnout… it gave voice to something I had experienced back in residency. It was in this, that I began to see a new future. I loved being an integrative medicine doctor, but I thought to myself, "what if I could use this work to help and heal other doctors who are suffering from burnout?" Of course my inner critic was telling me that this was "crazy"."Who are you to say you are an expert in coaching and healing doctors from burnout?" "You are not experienced enough…" "no one knows who you are" … "you are not important enough"… that little voice said."No one is going to want to do this NLP work…they are going to think you are over the top… Too "woo".". It was met with the question of "can I even really make a difference with something this big?" "will my voice even matter?"
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Jesus Be A Fence
Jesus be a fence, a barbed wire gate or that wall #45 kept babbling about. We need your divine protection from this mess.
If you haven’t heard by now, the company THC Living recently released a product called Canna Bumps: a cannabis powder designed to mimic taking a hit of cocaine i.e. doing a bump. While a few found the idea to be entertaining and eagerly anticipated that “pleasant drip” the manufacture advertised (before the product was quickly pulled off the market), many found the product to be problematic and here’s why:
A cannabis product that resembles harmful drugs hurts cannabis legalization efforts by diminishing the fact that cannabis is medicine. This prolongs the denial of proper medical treatment for millions of patients, as well as the unjust incarceration of thousands of people (especially people of color.)Prohibitionists will continuously use this as an example of why cannabis should not be allowed to become fully legal when they speak to legislators and to the public. Again, resulting in the continuation of inadequate healthcare and the war on drugs (more appropriately termed – the war on people.)According to reports, the label on the packaging did not disclose all of the ingredients in the product, so unnamed ingredients that are not safe for inhalation or insufflation may have caused medical harm to consumers. Remember the vape crisis? This was a health crisis, in which multiple people suffered from lung injury and some people even died due to vitamin E and other additives that should not have been in the vape oils in the first place. With all the barriers to overcome in this industry, we obviously don’t have time for people making cannabis look bad because they mixed it with a little somethin’ somethin’.
As an advocate for cannabis legalization (EQUITABLE cannabis legalization), I agree with all of those points for the most part, but let me speak as a medical professional for a minute. We know that cocaine, opioids, methamphetamine and other dangerous substances can be inhaled in a powder form. The reason people utilize this method is because the substances get into the bloodstream quickly, resulting in rapid onset of the “desired” effect. Rapid onset is great in certain circumstances, but what’s the cost in this situation? The powder could contain contaminants. The powder itself could cause harm by irritating the mucous membranes, resulting in inflammation, necrosis or the death of tissue, ulcers, bleeding, facial deformities and the lack of barrier protections. We need the mucous membranes and hair-like structures that are in our noses to keep harmful bacteria, viruses, fungi and debris out of our sinuses and lungs so we don’t get serious infections. So, consuming harmful compounds or unhealthy preparations that would interfere with this protection (or have you looking crazy in these streets with a “cocaine nose”) is probably not the best idea.
Yes, cannabis is a very safe medication. It has fewer and less serious side effects than a lot of other medications, but there is a right and a wrong way to consume anything. There are nasal sprays and nebulizers that are thoughtfully formulated to safely allow rapid absorption of medications. This quickly made, devoid of sensible research and development product called Canna Bumps is not what’s up.
Wonder why I say that no common sense or scientific knowledge went into the production of this product? Well, after all the industry backlash, THC Living made this statement through their attorney:
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