Show Transcript

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Kevin Lowe: You know that infamous question when people ask, how do you see the glass?

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Kevin Lowe: Is it half empty or half full?

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Kevin Lowe: Well, they didn't tell you that there's a third option.

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Kevin Lowe: What if you see the glass is overflowing?

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Kevin Lowe: Yeah, that is the view of today's guest, Alethea Felton.

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Kevin Lowe: She is going to show us that when she looks at the glass, she sees it as overflowing.

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Kevin Lowe: Overflowing with hope, with love, with excitement, and of transformation.

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Kevin Lowe: She is on a journey today to prove to you that no matter what you're going through

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Kevin Lowe: in life, that you'll get through it.

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Kevin Lowe: That there's always a rainbow after the rain. When you hear Aletheia speak for

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Kevin Lowe: the very first time, you're going to realize that she's like a ball of sunlight.

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Kevin Lowe: She's amazing. And yet, my friend, she's just like all of us, like you.

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Kevin Lowe: She's been through some really hard times in life.

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Kevin Lowe: But look where she is today, here to inspire you, to empower you,

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Kevin Lowe: to make the most of your life, to enjoy every day, because we never know what tomorrow will bring.

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Kevin Lowe: So why don't we all do our best possible to enjoy right now?

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Kevin Lowe: Now, remember, today's episode, today's interview, it's going to be powerful.

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Kevin Lowe: And I guarantee you that there's going to be a girlfriend, a mother,

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Kevin Lowe: an aunt, grandmother, sister, somebody who you think of that you know needs

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Kevin Lowe: to hear this message today.

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Kevin Lowe: Please share it with them. That would mean the world to me, and I know it would

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Kevin Lowe: mean the world to today's guest, Alethea.

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Kevin Lowe: And with that, my friend, I'm going to turn it over. It's episode 324. Let's go.

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Theme: Yo, are you ready to flip the script on life? Because those bad days,

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Theme: they're just doors to better days.

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Theme: And that's exactly what we do here at Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

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Theme: Your host, Kevin Lowe, he's been flipping the script on his own life,

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Theme: turning over 20 years of being completely blind into straight-up inspiration,

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Theme: motivation, and encouragement just for you.

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Theme: So, kick back, relax, and let me introduce you to your host, Kevin Lowe.

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Kevin Lowe: Well, Miss Alethea, welcome to the podcast. It is such a pleasure to have you.

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Alethea Felton: Hey, Kevin. I am so excited to be here with you today, my friend.

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Kevin Lowe: Oh my goodness, absolutely. Well, I have been looking forward to this so much because you know what?

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Kevin Lowe: Even though I'm blind, I actually am wearing my sunglasses today because I feel

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Kevin Lowe: like you are like nothing but a ray of sunlight shining at me.

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Alethea Felton: Oh, well, look, all that I'm going to say is, you know it. And if I am the sun, then you are the moon.

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Alethea Felton: And both of us are reflecting and doing some awesome solar light things in this universe.

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Kevin Lowe: I love it. You can tell we think a lot of ourselves.

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Alethea Felton: Oh, my goodness.

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Kevin Lowe: Oh, my goodness. Well, I want to start off our conversation today.

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Kevin Lowe: And I'm going to throw it at you because I want you to tell me,

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Kevin Lowe: how would you describe who Alethea Felton is right now in your life?

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Alethea Felton: Who Alethea Felton is, is I am a self-assured,

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Alethea Felton: confident woman of God and faith who has evolved extraordinarily into knowing

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Alethea Felton: who I am and accepting my worth.

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Alethea Felton: I'm still learning more and more about me daily. I am a woman who is grateful

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Alethea Felton: for every single day that I get.

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Alethea Felton: I am also someone that absolutely loves the oceans, ocean life,

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Alethea Felton: mermaids. I don't care what anybody says.

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Alethea Felton: Mermaids are real and I will take that to the bank. So I love mermaids.

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Alethea Felton: I am a Southerner born and raised in Southeastern Virginia, right by the North

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Alethea Felton: Carolina line. So I am a Southerner, lived for many years in Washington, D.C.

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Alethea Felton: Proper, still have property up there and I still go up there once a month.

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Alethea Felton: But in terms of the core of who I am, I am just someone who is so grateful for

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Alethea Felton: every day that I'm given.

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Alethea Felton: I've always seen my glass as just not half full, but half full to overflowing.

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Alethea Felton: My cup runneth over so as to speak with my life. And that's who I am for sighted people.

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Alethea Felton: If anyone sees me, people automatically recognize that I wear,

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Alethea Felton: I have locks in terms of my hairstyle, but I also wear head wraps and very colorful ones.

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Alethea Felton: So people will see me with my colors.

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Alethea Felton: It can be gloomy outside and I still have on something bright and vibrant because

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Alethea Felton: I'm a colorful person, meaning that I just embrace the beauty of life, even on the dark days.

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Alethea Felton: So that's how I would describe who I am at this point in my life, Kevin.

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Kevin Lowe: Oh, my goodness. Well, I think that is an adequate description.

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Kevin Lowe: And I think this sets the stage for us today because, I mean,

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Kevin Lowe: you are such an amazing woman.

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Kevin Lowe: And what I'm anxious to discover, though, is kind of the story behind this woman.

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Kevin Lowe: What's led to this story?

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Kevin Lowe: Point in your life? Have you always been this just glowing ray of sunlight?

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Kevin Lowe: And so I guess I would love to ask if you would kind of take me back a little

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Kevin Lowe: bit in life, because as radiant as you are,

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Kevin Lowe: I don't want anybody to think that you haven't been, you know,

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Kevin Lowe: through your own hardships, because I know that you've dealt with many medical issues.

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Kevin Lowe: And so would you mind just kind of exploring that aspect of your life with us?

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Alethea Felton: Certainly, I will. So in terms of my life, I have definitely had my share of

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Alethea Felton: hardships and people are probably like, why is she laughing if she's had hardships?

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Alethea Felton: Because sometimes I say to myself, God, I know that they say that you make no

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Alethea Felton: mistakes and that you make all things perfect and you're perfect.

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Alethea Felton: But sometimes I said maybe God took a nap on the day that he made me.

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Alethea Felton: But uh.

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Alethea Felton: So I say that because part of my journey literally started at birth,

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Alethea Felton: where I was born as a baby with a defective liver, had a very severe case of jaundice.

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Alethea Felton: Now, jaundice is common in a lot of babies, but with mine, it was lingering.

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Alethea Felton: And I was quite sickly as a baby, as a kid growing up.

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Alethea Felton: And I always like to say that just because I had a defective liver,

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Alethea Felton: my parents did nothing to cause it.

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Alethea Felton: Turned out to be some type of genetic fluke and abnormality,

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Alethea Felton: which led to stunted growth in my early childhood.

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Alethea Felton: I'm tall now. I'm 5'9". So I had a major growth spurt when I was about 13.

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Alethea Felton: But I was very short as a kid, very sickly, always vomiting,

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Alethea Felton: always achy, not feeling well. And my mom used to take me to doctor after doctor.

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Alethea Felton: And my dad, frankly, at the time thought that my mom was just over exaggerating,

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Alethea Felton: but mom knew something wasn't right.

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Alethea Felton: So I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I'll be 43 August 27th. the 7th.

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Alethea Felton: And so I grew up in a time when they did the basics when it came to pediatrics.

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Alethea Felton: They just made sure you were breathing.

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Alethea Felton: And if you were breathing and alive, you were okay. So my mom tried to get me

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Alethea Felton: all of these different specialized tests. They never found anything.

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Alethea Felton: So my parents raised me to have a pretty much normal life.

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Alethea Felton: And kind of fast forward to my late 20s, I was was officially diagnosed with

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Alethea Felton: having Crohn's disease,

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Alethea Felton: as well as a liver condition named autoimmune hepatitis type 1 that eventually

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Alethea Felton: also led to primary sclerosing cholangitis,

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Alethea Felton: which is PSC, or hardening of the bile ducts, which can lead to complete and

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Alethea Felton: total liver failure, which could lead to either transplantation or death.

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Alethea Felton: And obviously, Kevin, you are not speaking to a spirit or a ghost. So I am still living.

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Alethea Felton: So that has been my journey where I have had multiple hospitalizations in my past.

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Alethea Felton: I was almost in hospice care at one point, planned my entire funeral,

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Alethea Felton: and I'm now here and I'm thriving.

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Alethea Felton: So that's the nuts and bolts of it.

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Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Wow. Now, during your childhood years and like teenage years and stuff,

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Kevin Lowe: Did these issues affect you from living a, you know, quote unquote,

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Kevin Lowe: like normal life as a kid?

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Alethea Felton: No, not at all.

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Alethea Felton: And pardon me for saying I was taking a drink of water, but no,

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Alethea Felton: it didn't. And I'll tell you why. Because.

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Alethea Felton: My parents could not get an official diagnosis. A lot of it was the home treatment care of things.

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Alethea Felton: My late grandmother, who I adore, this was my father's mother, she was a nurse.

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Alethea Felton: And so on times that I had to be home from school sick, oftentimes I would be with my grandma. mom.

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Alethea Felton: But even my sick days, my parents had to force me to stay home from school because

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Alethea Felton: I was such an overachiever.

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Alethea Felton: I was very active in school.

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Alethea Felton: In fact, growing up, I was big in theater and on the stage and music lessons

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Alethea Felton: and things of that nature.

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Alethea Felton: So I was in academia as well as the arts. And my parents always had it so that

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Alethea Felton: my sister and I lived a normal life.

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Alethea Felton: So although I always felt a certain kind of way and I never felt my best.

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Alethea Felton: I didn't think about the fact growing up that I had these conditions or that

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Alethea Felton: I was sick because I still made honor roll.

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Alethea Felton: I still was active in school.

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Alethea Felton: I still did things, normal things. And ironically, a lot of my close friends

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Alethea Felton: didn't even realize that I had these health conditions until I was an adult.

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Alethea Felton: Even some people in my family, I'm talking aunts and uncles and first cousins,

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Alethea Felton: didn't know that I had been going through these battles with sickness as a kid,

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Alethea Felton: Kevin, because my parents kept it private and they did everything they could

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Alethea Felton: to make me have a sense of normalcy.

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Alethea Felton: And you asked me earlier if I've always kind of had this kind of outlook.

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Alethea Felton: I would say yes. And I'll give you an example.

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Alethea Felton: Due to the liver conditions, some of my toenails are...

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Alethea Felton: Meaning that when I was born, some were like brown and black,

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Alethea Felton: which would freak out other people.

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Alethea Felton: It's not fungus, but it's a clear sign of liver disease.

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Alethea Felton: Make a long story short, when I was a toddler, I noticed it as a small kid.

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Alethea Felton: And Kevin, I thought God painted my toenails.

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Alethea Felton: I literally thought that. Oh my God, this is so cool. Like, wow,

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Alethea Felton: this is cool. God painted my toenails.

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Alethea Felton: That's what I thought. And it wasn't until I got older that I told my mom that

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Alethea Felton: that's what I thought as a kid.

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Alethea Felton: So I've always been the kind where I've seen the glass just really, really overflowing.

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Alethea Felton: And I've always saw things from a happier view.

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Alethea Felton: Even with rain, I absolutely love rain.

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Alethea Felton: A lot of people People don't. But my father taught me at a young age,

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Alethea Felton: we would literally open up the front door and be standing by the screen door.

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Alethea Felton: Yes, I said a screen door.

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Alethea Felton: And if anybody knows what that is, that's old school for you.

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Alethea Felton: We will open up and stand by the screen door and look at thunderstorms.

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Alethea Felton: And daddy would tell me he would say, although it's raining and it's cloudy

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Alethea Felton: and thundering outside, the sun always shines behind the clouds.

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Alethea Felton: And he was telling me this when I was like five and six.

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Alethea Felton: So he always told me without rain, we couldn't have grass. We couldn't have flowers.

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Alethea Felton: We couldn't have all of the beautiful verdant greenery.

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Alethea Felton: And so that was instilled in me as a young kid.

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Alethea Felton: And I always lived by it. Does it mean though, Kevin, that I didn't slump into

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Alethea Felton: moments of depression, sadness, and sorrow?

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Alethea Felton: Oh gosh, absolutely not. I

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Alethea Felton: definitely did. but overall, I've always had a more optimistic viewpoint.

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Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. And oh my gosh, I love that story about your dad with the rain.

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Kevin Lowe: I think that is so powerful, so amazing.

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Kevin Lowe: Talk to me a little bit about your faith journey. How has that played out in your life?

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Alethea Felton: My faith journey, yeah. Well, I grew up in a Christian household.

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Alethea Felton: And what I mean by that is we were followers of Jesus Christ.

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Alethea Felton: My father is a former psychiatric counselor as well as a former pastor.

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Alethea Felton: What I will say is that my sister and I did not follow that stereotypical preacher's

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Alethea Felton: kid upbringing of us being wild or rambunctious and all that kind of stuff.

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Alethea Felton: No, because with my my daddy having that psychiatric counselor background,

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Alethea Felton: he and my mother, they always talked with us about things.

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Alethea Felton: So we had the type of household where we could talk about any and everything.

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Alethea Felton: So as a young kid, I remember going to Sunday school, but I wasn't your typical

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Alethea Felton: Christian that just fell into whatever was told me. I questioned a lot.

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Alethea Felton: And I had a father and he's still living, but daddy was always so patient with

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Alethea Felton: me and explaining things.

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Alethea Felton: And so in terms of a religious practice, I graduated more towards teachings of Christ.

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Alethea Felton: However, if you look at it from a more spiritual standpoint,

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Alethea Felton: I did have times in my life where I had near death experiences.

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Alethea Felton: I've talked about them more recently on a couple of podcasts where I've literally

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Alethea Felton: seen things and had experiences in the supernatural, which solidified my faith even more.

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Alethea Felton: I didn't see Jesus in those occurrences, but those were times when I did encounter what I call angels.

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Alethea Felton: I've encountered spirits on the other side, and I've seen realms that I know were not dreams.

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Alethea Felton: And so that also gave me a piece about death where I don't fear death itself

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Alethea Felton: but also it taught me that.

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Alethea Felton: Throughout my life, I just always believed that God was within me.

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Alethea Felton: If I call myself a child of God, then that means that I share God's DNA.

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Alethea Felton: And so therefore, I have the power within myself that God has given me to be

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Alethea Felton: able to overcome any and every obstacle that comes my way.

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Alethea Felton: And that always guided me is that I don't see God necessarily as this high off

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Alethea Felton: being sitting in the clouds, but that God is everywhere. God is spirit. God is love.

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Alethea Felton: And so with that being said, Kevin, I've carried that principle of faith and

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Alethea Felton: just believing in the impossibilities turning into realities.

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Alethea Felton: And that's what my spiritual journey faith walk has been like. It is firm. It is solid.

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Alethea Felton: And I have found that the intimacy I have with God has come from the darkest

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Alethea Felton: moments of my life, whether it was from sickness,

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Alethea Felton: whether it was from grieving the deaths of two of my best friends,

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Alethea Felton: whether it was from heartache due to heartbreak, whatever it was,

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Alethea Felton: the most severe trials of my life have brought me closer to God.

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Kevin Lowe: Wow. So, so amazing. Amazing power.

00:17:09.151 --> 00:17:13.591

Kevin Lowe: So amazing. And such an amazing testimony.

00:17:13.991 --> 00:17:21.811

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, that's absolutely beautiful. Now, you just mentioned the loss of two of your best friends.

00:17:22.663 --> 00:17:29.423

Kevin Lowe: I want to ask you about that. But before we do, I want to ask you to explore

00:17:29.423 --> 00:17:34.303

Kevin Lowe: a little bit about something you said earlier that I have to go back to.

00:17:34.463 --> 00:17:40.043

Kevin Lowe: And that is the fact that you said at one point in time, you were preparing

00:17:40.043 --> 00:17:42.923

Kevin Lowe: to die. Will you talk to me about that?

00:17:43.563 --> 00:17:48.903

Alethea Felton: Yeah, sure. I certainly will. Back in 2012, May of 2012.

00:17:49.143 --> 00:17:54.663

Alethea Felton: So this is what, 12 years ago now. Now, May of 2012, I was still diagnosed with

00:17:54.663 --> 00:17:56.583

Alethea Felton: the autoimmune hepatitis type 1.

00:17:56.803 --> 00:18:02.943

Alethea Felton: And just to give people some education, autoimmune hepatitis is exactly what it is.

00:18:03.043 --> 00:18:08.043

Alethea Felton: It's not the type that you catch. It's not hep A, B, C, or anything like that.

00:18:08.123 --> 00:18:12.803

Alethea Felton: But it's literally where the liver fights itself with autoimmune hep.

00:18:12.883 --> 00:18:17.723

Alethea Felton: And because the liver thinks that it itself is a foreign object,

00:18:17.923 --> 00:18:22.683

Alethea Felton: it fights itself, overworks, and basically takes the liver into liver failure.

00:18:23.003 --> 00:18:29.143

Alethea Felton: At the time, I had a severe case of autoimmune hepatitis that led to full cirrhosis of the liver.

00:18:29.423 --> 00:18:33.083

Alethea Felton: I had had different ultrasounds. I had a fibro scan.

00:18:33.263 --> 00:18:38.623

Alethea Felton: I had MRIs, everything confirming this end-stage cirrhosis.

00:18:39.043 --> 00:18:44.203

Alethea Felton: But I didn't qualify for a transplant. It's a very complicated scale to even

00:18:44.203 --> 00:18:45.483

Alethea Felton: qualify for a transplant.

00:18:45.623 --> 00:18:50.023

Alethea Felton: That's a whole other episode. So, well, anyway, there had come a point where

00:18:50.023 --> 00:18:53.983

Alethea Felton: my hepatologist or my liver specialist at the time,

00:18:54.103 --> 00:18:58.443

Alethea Felton: she was taking all these tests and was the best of the best,

00:18:58.483 --> 00:19:03.263

Alethea Felton: but taking all these tests and she kind of broke protocol as a doctor.

00:19:03.383 --> 00:19:05.203

Alethea Felton: And I'm going to tell you how.

00:19:05.403 --> 00:19:09.783

Alethea Felton: Breaking it in a good way. when she had to come to me with the news that there

00:19:09.783 --> 00:19:11.363

Alethea Felton: was nothing more she could do.

00:19:11.683 --> 00:19:16.683

Alethea Felton: Kevin, I remember she looked at me square in the eyes and she kind of tilted

00:19:16.683 --> 00:19:19.543

Alethea Felton: her head back and just looked down on me.

00:19:20.350 --> 00:19:25.650

Alethea Felton: And she said to me, she said, although medically there's nothing more I can

00:19:25.650 --> 00:19:29.690

Alethea Felton: do, she said, but I believe God is not through with you yet.

00:19:31.710 --> 00:19:32.930

Kevin Lowe: Oh, wow.

00:19:34.190 --> 00:19:38.770

Alethea Felton: She said that she said God is not through with you yet. She said,

00:19:38.810 --> 00:19:41.570

Alethea Felton: scientifically, there's not much more I can do.

00:19:41.850 --> 00:19:46.830

Alethea Felton: She said, but I just have the biggest feeling that your life is not over.

00:19:46.830 --> 00:19:52.130

Alethea Felton: And so I need you right now to take this information I'm giving you and to,

00:19:52.230 --> 00:19:54.890

Alethea Felton: yes, talk to your loved ones, family and friends.

00:19:55.210 --> 00:20:02.590

Alethea Felton: But I need you to keep trusting God. And we had never really talked about faith or anything like that.

00:20:02.770 --> 00:20:10.650

Alethea Felton: So I remember that I was going in for a final biopsy just to confirm the whole stage for it.

00:20:11.690 --> 00:20:17.970

Alethea Felton: