Power, confidence, and authenticity

On disappointing your audience at every talk

Hello darlings!

How is everyone doing with <wide arms> all this? Yeah, not great over here! Cool cool cool.

I got this question from the MHAWS NGL (send me your questions please!):

The short, unsatisfying answer is: I don’t! Everything I produce is trash! (except coauthored stuff, and then my coauthors had all the good ideas / work) I have no idea what I’m doing! I’m in therapy about it! I luckily don’t have panic attacks (RIP Andrea Gibson), but no I’m never okay.

The longer answer is: I try really hard to be myself in all situations and that’s all I can do. I anticipate disappointing someone at every single turn. I don’t let anyone bully me (including myself and made up people in my mind). And I know the stakes are incredibly low: All knowledge is fleeting. All the stars we see are already dead. Nothing matters!

The importance of authenticity

One thing that has helped me a lot with confidence, particularly as I go out into the world to talk about my research or post about it on Bluesky or whatever, is that I just try to be myself. Mirya. That’s it. That’s fucking it. That is all I have. People that I interact with online often tell me that I am very similar in person to who I am online. At a conference this summer, I got a comment that I regularly get, which is: “wow, you are just like you are online!” Yes. I don’t have the fucking energy or motivation to be anyone else. Being me makes everything easier and I can have some degree to confidence in ME that way. (But also, being me is fucking awesome and why would I be something else??)

It turns out that being authentic also helps me in lots of other ways. Not only do I not waste my time pretending to be someone else, but I also have an easier time writing in my voice, as Catherine De Vries talks about in her Substack.

You’ve Got the Ideas. What If It’s Your Voice That’s Not Landing?

I enjoy giving talks more as I just am… me. And I think it has genuinely helped with imposter syndrome as I feel way less like I faked it into every fucking setting.

Someone is always going to be disappointed

One of the most freeing mindsets for me is the understanding that I will never be palatable to some people. I’m a loudmouthed, smart, educated woman. There’s no version of myself that will be pleasing to everyone. I choose annoying over boring every fucking day!

So I just assume that I’m going to disappoint a big group of people at any point in time. Out there somewhere RIGHT NOW is someone reading this, shaking their head, going “that Mirya is such a fucking bitch.” Uh huh. There’s some pencil dick dweeb getting mad about something I wrote somewhere. Good. Get butt hurt. There is no benefit to me to pleasing those people.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t worry about what people think about me! I’m a millennial with high functioning anxiety living in the United States in 2025, teaching at a public university in Texas. I’m freaking out ALL THE TIME. But one of my most valuable lessons from therapy is that I can control the things that I worry about and how I react to them.

But the reality is that even my worst social worries coming true is just… fine? When I wrote a “Day in the Life” MHAWS, I spent all weekend before I sent it panicking about how annoying it was. And then I got accidently cc’ed on this message:

OMG! That’s about me! I’m the queen of productivity! Oh, and an annoying bitch (sad trombone sound). But this is the thing: they are right. I AM an annoying bitch about a ton of shit. I am annoying about how shitty it is to be using student evals to measure teaching quality and about policies that discriminate against caregiving folks. I’m annoying about how I don’t ever want to see any message from the pundit bros on my social media. I am annoying about my dog and my marvelous life and my goals. And if you threaten any of my friends, you’ll get to see what I bitch I can be. This annoying bitch will ruin your life. So if the worst thing that happens is someone calling me an annoying bitch, okay.

Consider who is allowed to give you feedback

I get a fair amount of other academics who express… concern… about this newsletter. I’m not presenting my best self to the public. I’m ruining my career. I’m too focused on the experiences of women. I’m petty. I’m way too focused on revenge. In essence, Mirya…. if you could be a little less… uh…. MIRYA… that would be great.

You know what? FUCK those guys! (Always men). I have this Brene Brown quote posted in my office and think a lot about who is in the actual fucking arena getting their ass kicked on occasion.

If you are not in the arena getting your ass kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback. There are a million cheap seats in the world today filled with people who will never be brave with their own lives, but will spend every ounce of energy they have hurling advice and judgement at those of us trying to dare greatly. Their only contributions are criticism, cynicism, and fear-mongering. If you're criticizing from a place where you're not also putting yourself on the line, I'm not interested in your feedback.
- Brene Brown, Rising Strong, p 4

Ask yourself: who deserves to give you feedback? Who is actually interested in building you up, rather than just making you shrink yourself more and more until you disappear? And stop taking feedback on who you are from people who do not have any actual money on the table. Fuck those broke ass losers.

So: stop letting people bully you (including yourself). Be yourself. You are badass. And probably an annoying bitch (I mean, if I like you, you are definitely an annoying bitch). But that’s actually great.

XOXOX

Mirya