Celebrating the power of possibility. I'm Brittany Tarrwater and I believe anything is possible. This is Anything is Possible. I'm Halloran Hilton Hill, part two of my interview with Brittany Tarrwater, who in full disclosure, we work at the same station. She's a great friend, but I just am a fan of you. I'm really proud of you and your husband and your family and the way you're doing life and growing through life.
And thank you for the willingness to be transparent about your journey, especially as you've been telling us your story about your mom. And just to catch you up on the story, middle school, high school, you have a difficult relationship with your mother. The way you described it was, you said you were too immature to understand her struggles and her contributions. And the best way you found to deal with that, the tension between the two of you, was to wall yourself off from it.
To move away, to lock yourself into your career as a swimmer and then your aspirations as a journalist and anchor. And if you don't have to deal with it, it's not there. But then we reach these inflection points in life and your mother is literally on her death bed. You've been called in and you're spending more time with her and maybe it's the obligation of a daughter to a mother, but there's still that distance and that tension.
She's an atheist. Your faith is essential to you and your faith is calling you to be something that your flesh is resisting. Is that a spot on? So you go to see your mother, she asks you about your faith, she has a devotional, as an atheist is doing with a devotional, and she said, oh, things have changed. So maybe pick it up from there.
Yeah, sure. So this was not long in my last visit to her when we had that conversation. And then maybe two weeks later, maybe a week later, she had lost her ability to speak. So we knew time was coming. And I got a phone call and it said, Mom, on my phone. I thought, well, surely it's my sister or someone just calling from her phone. And I picked up the phone and it was her. She said, Hi, sweetie pie. I just want you to know that I'm going to die today. And I love you.
And I just told her I knew where she was going. And I'd see her again. That was it. And she was right. She was right because she was going to die that day. Did you feel resolved or unresolved? I felt very much resolved. It was all the heaviness of being angry with someone was gone. You know, I don't know the name of my show is anything is possible. I've spent a lot of time talking to people about success and ambition and people frame success in terms of... Sure. Yeah. Hardware.
But the older I get, the more I do this work. For me, the richness is in the possibility of new beginnings. That you can go through and you can grow through things in your life that seem insurmountable. It seems like the most insurmountable things are the things on the inside. Right? And for you to climb that mountain, for you to...for God to give you the grace to deal with that and to resolve that.
And to...can you imagine all the years, the stuff you were holding, the stuff she was feeling, the way that energy gets in and on the people around you? So have you thought about that as well? No, I haven't. But my husband has really taught me how to offer grace. And the power of redemption, and that's real. And how to be vulnerable with people. Because I think part of that is just to protect yourself from really the fear of people finding out who you really are.
Yeah. So a lot of that I've seen through my husband and through Doug Bannister, who is just... Oh, God. Phenomenal. Wonderful person, very influential and impactful person in my life. He married us. Married all of us in our family. And he's just a...really was one of the first people to tell me that I needed to go repair the relationship with my mom. Davis and Doug and my father-in-law Dwight and people around me who encouraged that.
Possibility powered by Covenant Health, Home Federal, and the Knoxville News Sentinel. Coming up... My veil was always, if you came back here, you would see that it's empty. That I'm not a good enough reporter. I'm not very... I'm not the fastest swimmer. I'm not really even very smart. You know, and this is for anybody watching that is harboring any type of unforgiveness.
You don't get away clean It's doing something to you It'll it's gonna show up it's gonna show up in the way it affects all of the relationships around you and if you can find your way to
Forgiveness, it's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing. It's a God thing But then there's another there's another part of this that I wanted to speak to That's that's coming up for me here and that is this You said all of us have this this primal fear that if you really knew me you wouldn't you wouldn't like me right, oh yes, and It's just a it's just a so we we create our avatars we present them to the world The problem with that is people fall in love with the avatar
They they they fall in love with this The synthetic placeholder we've created for people to love and They fall in love with that Our self-awareness knows you like that image You have no idea who I am You have no idea who I am and you notice the distance between and that distance has a feeling the beautiful thing about taking the risk to be known is That You find out number one It is a great It's a great way to change the oil It's a great way to
To clean the oven because all of the people who don't really care about you are going to be removed, right?
but then what happens is the people who really love you show up and You get to know for sure finally That someone would choose to love that you and That quality of love is way better than having somebody be in love with an image of you And I don't think we can know that until we cross that transom of forgiveness Because that's what you had to choose to do with your mother Not the mother I wish you were not who what I I just love you
I forgive you I see you I see it makes sense to me how you could be broken and and Have all of this other complexity in your life because you're a human being just like does it does any of this make sense to you? Yes, what does that bring up?
I my My veil was always if you came back here you would see that there's that it's that it's empty that I I'm not a good enough Reporter I'm not very Swimmer I'm not really even very smart like I don't know enough about the Bible I don't know like all of my vulnerabilities and and that I just believe is is just the enemy Trying to isolate you from from God from community from family from being the best friend the best parent the best spouse the best That you can be and
It helps me to see that so I can say well wait a minute Talk about the freedom on the other side of that. How do you feel now? Well? I mean, I'm not sure that I've nailed it I'm not sure that I I'm you know, I'm still a little bit progress, but they're certainly feel certainly Certainly and it helps you to understand other people I think Here's another here's another thing that I've discovered
You got me talking. Yeah, go on man. I like to listen Well same cuz we're doing Your story teller your story teller and I was I was I Was watching this master class with Michael Lewis who wrote money ball and All these other great books the big short And what he said was you really do need to live some life To get to to get in touch with humanity because as a storyteller It's hard to even see or sense somebody's story if you don't know Pain If you don't know, you know, he was talking about this
He was working on this one book the premonition or whatever and he was working with this this lady Who was a infectious disease specialist and he asked her if he could spend a day in her house if she would leave the house and if he could just go through her house and Under protest she tells him yes, and he's and he noticed in her bathroom she had all these affirmations and and those affirmations showed him that She really was unsure that anybody would like her or Right and he told that
Part of her story in the book and she was mad at first for this very same reason if people ever discovered Who I really was But that's exactly what she needed and what got him there though was the death of his one of his children and Knowing the pain of loss helped him recognize pain and You know, I think of all the years that I've been telling stories and doing this work It is the pain in my own experience That allows me to see you today as you are Otherwise I'd be talking about that
Yeah, you and I both know that doesn't matter right when the real important thing is You are good enough Because God says so right you are worthy enough you are Exactly who he created you to be I Wouldn't know it without my own brokenness does that make And so I thank you for willing to be being willing to be that vulnerable because If it connects me it's probably connecting Whoever's on the other side of that land So Think you and I have had a lot of hard conversations and have
Shared a lot of details. We've been friends for a long time and we've shared a lot of details about our lives and Some stuff I haven't shared with very many other people You have a way of listening about you have a way of hearing people I think that lets people be willing to be vulnerable and to share more of who they are But I think about too like if God made me perfectly in exactly the way that he intended to make me It's got to be good enough for me right
And I hope you see that too. Yeah, you will see but my thing is I
Knew we were gonna have a great conversation. I didn't know it would be this conversation. I did this was not part of the same I'm like, I don't know what direction this could go But I will say this one of the I love story I love storytelling and I Mentioned this a number of times Robert McKee is there's a guy that I studied storytelling under and One of the things he said was write the truth first of all is that the truth will always cut through it just does but he said
To have a story you have to have a main character you have a setting But you have to have crisis and then resolution and you don't have a story I Remember when you were in this screenwriting workshop and he said when you want to introduce character The first thing you do is You bring another person or an event into a person's life That is a moment of crisis because it will reveal Character it'll show you what they're made of put them in a tough situation but it also
Not only will it reveal who they are but it will refine who they are those those moments that we have in our lives that challenge us change us and You know just in the telling of your story Just seeing the arc of your career
I can see how all of that is conspiring to make you an even better version of yourself. I appreciate you saying that I think When I approach storytelling I I try not to write the story before I Get to the story before I hear the story or learn the story because often it's easy to create the narration that you want, right?
So I try really hard not to Write the story before I know the story And you got to write the truth, but also in this case for me you got to tell the truth So Like I said coming to Knoxville I had the chance to be who I wanted to be But I think it's also important to be who you are and share those truths That's it. You know, that's an interesting thing is Being who you want to be and being who you are and getting to that point in your life We're who you want to be is who you are That's good
Right. I remember Miles Davis was trying to sound like all these different trumpet players And he said it took me a long time to sound like myself
What are your ambitions going forward? I've going forward Well, I I Teach at the University of Tennessee I recently accepted a bigger role there, so I So I really enjoy working with young people and I just hope that I can share some of what I've learned along the way and continue in my journey What are you sharing with young people when you when you are pouring into young people when you are like if you had 16 year old Brittany sitting here with This Brittany
What do you say to her now knowing what you know now it gets good It gets good. I'm glad I didn't know Just for having to go through it But I would want to say to her that it it gets good Gets hard first, but it gets good But in the classroom, I don't know what I'm telling her I don't know what I'm talking about
Brittany Tarwater, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. I wish you much success I think we got the title of your book now It gets good I think that's gonna be a great thing and and thank you for being so transparent with your story We love seeing you on television. We love all the work you do in our community We love the way you're gonna bless students at the university and who knows what's next, but I know it's it gets good Thank you for joining us. Thank you