Start Reading VulnerABLE: How to Notice the Power of Vulnerability Through Lettuce, Laundry, and Love by Julia Ruggiero…

From the publisher: “VulnerABLE: How to Notice the Power of Vulnerability Through Lettuce, Laundry, and Love is a non-fiction book that speaks to people going through a time of transition; people looking to gain power over shame and doubt and notice the power in their voices. With a focus on mental health awareness, Julia Ruggiero shares personal stories from her own life growing alongside of her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as well as sharing stories from others, every reader can find a glimpse of wisdom to notice the rocky but powerful and beautiful path of vulnerability. In this book, you’ll learn how to notice vulnerability in both small and large moments, gaining the confidence in knowing you are not alone through three parts:

* How our own voices and thoughts hold us back from embracing our worth

* How other’s voices, criticism, and opinions influence how we look at ourselves

* How to notice the bigger, realistic meaning of love and connection

No matter your age, gender, beliefs, and the like, this book talks about vulnerability in various different walks of life and explains why everyone’s voice has worth. Some of the topics discussed include women and vulnerability, men and vulnerability, romantic relationships and vulnerability, parents and vulnerability, students and vulnerability, mental illness/suicide/eating disorders/phobias/Obsessive Compulsive Disorder/cancer/shame/guilt/self-doubt and vulnerability, bullying, jealousy, public speaking, entrepreneurship, faith, and more…”

More Info

About the Author: Julia Ruggiero is a writer and speaker from Pittsburgh, PA. She graduated from John Carroll University in 2019 with a degree in Communication and currently works in the marketing department at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. Her passion includes speaking about mental health awareness, relationships, leadership, entrepreneurship, and the power of vulnerABILITY. Julia believes that everyone has something special within themselves to share with the world.

When she is not writing, she loves reading any and every book she can get her hands on and staying up late to binge-watch episodes of throwback shows including Rugrats. For more information, you can connect with Julia at www.juliaruggiero.com and both @juliacruggiero and @vulnerABLEmovement on Instagram.

Book Info

 

PART 1

‘I CAN’T CUT MY OWN LETTUCE’

 
“Sometimes when we dare to walk into the arena the greatest critic we face is ourselves.”
— Brené Brown
 

I can’t cut my lettuce. Yup, you read that correctly. It sounds like a pun or a meme or something, but it’s just reality.

Nice to meet you; my name is Julia Ruggiero, and I can’t cut my lettuce.

Why? Well, I had trouble cutting a huge wedge of lettuce for one reason:

I am a massive germaphobe. How do wedges of lettuce and germaphobia correlate in the slightest? And how does this relate to vulnerability?

I had just gotten off the second flight in my journey from Pittsburgh to Utah. I was traveling with one of my closest friends and her family; it was still morning when we landed. We were all exhausted and hungry by the time we settled into our hotel room. Although we could have used a little nap, we wanted to make the most out of the day and did not hesitate to jump into the car to head to Park City for lunch. My excitement suddenly turned to fear and shame in a matter of hours because of the food I chose to eat.

As tired as I felt, the scenery in Utah was beautiful and I wanted to take in every moment. Stomachs rumbling, we walked up to a quaint brewery for lunch. The walls were lined with Mason jars, the sunlight shining on every individual jar. We all took our seats, and when I picked up the menu, all I knew was that I wanted something refreshing and to chug as much water as possible. The salads sounded incredible, so I quickly chose one and was ready to dig in.

As I handed my menu to the waiter and moved my cup of water forward, I accidentally hit my unwrapped knife, which touched the table. I did not think much of it and continued to talk with everyone about our plans for the rest of the week. I knew the minute my salad hit the table I was going to eat it in less than two minutes.

I finally saw the waiter heading toward us, and when his tray got to my eye level, my shoulders instantly fell. The waiter plopped a wedge of lettuce down right in front of me that felt like the size of the Statue of Liberty.

Why did my shoulders fall? I realized that I would have to use my knife to cut the lettuce.

My thoughts were going in circles: I’m going to need to use my knife, won’t I? The same knife that touched the table … the dirty, germ-infested table?

I don’t want to risk sickness when I’m traveling! I can’t catch the stomach virus and throw up, I just can’t. I just want to enjoy the week and not have any problems. No way! I looked around and saw everyone’s unused knives sitting at the table. I started to weigh my options.

Okay Julia, all you have to do is ask someone, “Do any of you mind if this knife touched the table? Just to lay it out there, I am a germaphobe and I do not want to eat with my knife that fell on the table. If you aren’t using yours, can I switch with you?” I could even ask the waiter for a new knife. Or I could suck it up and use the knife, working through my fear…

But then people would look at me funny. I am making this a big deal. There are bigger problems in the world; why am I fixated on my knife?

What if everyone has questions about my fear of germs? What if someone makes fun of me? The slightest act of asking for someone to pass me a knife or grab me a new one felt like the biggest bother. You would have thought that I was asking someone to jump out of a plane with me. I wished the concept of my knife touching the table were not this bizarre and complicated.

Instead, I kept my mouth shut and started to tear at the lettuce with my fork. I was very hungry, and each piece that I was able to break off was miniscule. But I continued to eat, hoping that no one would notice.

Not long after all of the people seated at the table started to eat, everyone saw that I had not yet cut my wedge of lettuce.

“Are you going to cut that?” one asked. Another joked, “You know, if you use your knife, you can eat your meal!”

They giggled, thinking I was just messing around with them.

I started to make excuses, explaining that everything was fine and that I did not want or need to cut the wedge. A couple of minutes passed by, and little pieces of lettuce were falling off the plate. I kept dropping whatever my fork picked up.

I let every single person at the table make a comment, and I still kept my mouth shut.

Eventually, a voice said, “Here, I’ll do it.” My friend cut up the lettuce with her unused knife in less than five seconds.

I was absolutely mortified. I’m a grown-up, I thought to myself, and I can’t even work up the courage to speak!

While she was sliding the lettuce back to me, I buried my head into my lap. Every single person at the table I felt comfortable around, but for some reason I still did not want to admit I was afraid of a knife.

My eyes were welling up with tears from embarrassment. Julia, there is no excuse for this, I thought. Seriously, grow up. You’re being dramatic. I thought if I said these criticisms to myself first, it wouldn’t hurt as much if someone else said those words to me.

I fought to hold back my tears, not because I was angry at the people around me, but because I was so afraid of how crazy I would look when I said my knife brushed the table for a millisecond and I assumed the table was covered in germs that could possibly give me the stomach flu. All right, how am I going to say that out loud on the first day of a trip to a ton of people?

No one will want to travel with me ever again! I thought.
 

* * *
 

Nobody at the table understood my fear. I couldn’t blame them for that, because I did not even give them a chance to listen to me. I always assumed no one in the world would give me the chance to explain. I let that assumption hold me back from experiencing the possibilities using my voice could bring.

I was afraid that I would still look crazy if I explained my fear of germs.

People could not read my mind. It was my responsibility to speak up and own my decision, whether I told the whole story or not. I was mad at myself for being ashamed of my decisions.

If I believed that I was allowed to be vulnerable and embrace my voice, cutting lettuce may not have been as difficult. I would have embraced my truth and helped the people around me understand how I was feeling.

What was holding me back from admitting why I did not want to use my knife?

I started to recall the things I’d heard through the years when my anxiety flares up.

“Julia, you are acting childish.” “It’s not that big of a deal.” “You worry too much!” “There is no possible way in the world you can get sick from that.”

I used to blame everyone for their criticisms toward me. I looked at each comment as an attack. A threat.

In reality, most comments were actually said to try and help me get over the fear that popped up in my life every single day. I was blaming everyone else when I was taking each comment to heart, fueling the negative side of the comments and beating myself up in my own mind.

Many people do not understand what I am feeling, I kept needing to tell myself. And people everywhere are going to feel like they are mistreated unless voices come together and speak up. Vulnerability and understanding may just be the big secret to changing our lives, one voice at a time.

I started to think about how small of a situation this was, but how getting used to not speaking up could stick with me as bigger situations in my life arose.

A scary thought crossed my mind when pondering how upset this seemingly small situation made me feel.

If other people feel stuck, insecure, embarrassed, and deflated in their own lives over and over again, how do they keep the drive to continue moving forward? How will they handle facing the issues when times are tough?

I wanted to know how others felt in times of embarrassment, confusion, and fear. Why do people give up on tasks they once wanted to grow at? Do they think no one will take the time to understand them? Do people give up hope instead of facing their insecurities head on?
 

* * *
 
We are all broken. Every single one of us.
 
We crave fulfillment and connection. We tend to judge people and suppress our own mistakes. We make ourselves the protagonist in almost every story. And when we are broken down again and again, we may feel disconnected, misjudged, and alone.

This is a story of my own journey to find fulfillment and connection.

To do that, I’d have to learn to be vulnerable. This part of the book details my quest to embrace my own voice, my own opinions, my own thoughts, my own ideals, my own quirks, and all the things that make me… me.

And for a woman afraid to share why she needed a new knife, it required me to re-examine everything.

Think of the lettuce story. Think of the way I was talking to myself, the assumptions I made, and the harsh thoughts that I fueled in my mind.

Now think about this: Have you thought to yourself that you have no worth? If this ever happens to you, take a moment to reflect on how you view yourself. When your voice is judged or affected, you may turn against yourself, believing criticisms and losing confidence in yourself. When you assume someone will judge your voice, you may filter what you say.

Through these coming chapters, I will re-introduce you to a voice you may be all-too-familiar with: the voice within us holding us back from cutting our lettuce. The voice of self-criticism. Self-depreciation.

Lettuce symbolizes insurmountable mounds, or challenges, that arise in our own lives that we are responsible for growing from and working past as time progresses.

Part 1 will help you to learn about the whole scope of vulnerability, and how to stay mindful of your own thoughts and responses. You will learn some winks of wisdom to foster positive thoughts. You may notice more about how you talk to yourself.

Whether influenced by our shame, anxieties, or our fears, we will explore how our thoughts are just merely thoughts, why we do not give ourselves permission to be vulnerable.

Although we cannot always control what happens to us and what thoughts pop into our minds, we can control how we act and use our voice. We will learn that it’s possible to move from self-doubt to accepting ourselves and accepting our true voices.

Each chapter title in Part 1 will begin with a quote. These quotes are common phrases that we say to ourselves in times of disappointment and disapproval, phrases that we start to believe—phrases that hold us back from reaching our true potential and recognizing our worth.

Being vulnerable with someone else is one story, but you also have to be vulnerable with yourself.

Maybe you would have easily been able to tell the people eating at the table that you couldn’t cut your lettuce. Maybe you would have just cut and eaten your lettuce, despite the possibility of a dirty, table-touching knife. Through these chapters, my curiosity allowed me to explore why people may feel like they can and can’t cut their hypothetical wedge of lettuce.

Chances are there is someone else in the world who feels like they can’t cut their own lettuce, either.

Is it you? P.S. How wild is it that I’m writing this story publicly for you—my reader—when just a few months earlier I couldn’t even tell the closest people in my life. Maybe there’s some- thing to this whole being-vulnerable thing. Into the deep end of the pool we go!

 

This excerpt from VulnerABLE: How to Notice the Power of Vulnerability Through Lettuce, Laundry, and Love is published here courtesy of the author and should not be reproduced without permission.