Passion Series: Sari Holtz

June 19, 2013

This post is part of a weekly feature called the Passion Series…enjoy!

Sari Holtz put it best when she said she always feels better venting with her fingers rather than her voice. I feel the exact same way. Something about putting feelings down through type makes me feel like I’ve just finished an hour long therapy session, and as a mother of five, Sari certainly went about it the right way.

Sari’s blog, Sariously Speaking, was given to her as a birthday present from her husband on her 29th birthday. While it’s a little tough to blog weekly with her love-bundle of children, she’s fairly active on the site, and her posts revolve around her life in Israel, and musings on parenting, loss, and life in general. I find myself getting lost in her posts because her life is so different from what I am used to here in the U.S., and the way she tells stories about her past makes me feel like I’m reading a terrific book. I am so grateful to have connected with a blogger who has such fresh life perspectives to share.

Here’s what she had to say.

Has blogging helped you in any emotional or creative way?

I started blogging a bit more than two years ago, when my dear husband surprised me with a blog as a birthday gift. It was my 29th birthday, and I was a bit stressed about the imminent 3-0, albeit a full year early! I was feeling like I hadn’t really developed my own emotional maturity and that I didn’t really know myself well, so he/we thought a blog would be a good outlet for me to publicize some of my issues, concerns and confusions, and to get to know myself, perhaps for the first time.

Has blogging daily/weekly helped you achieve any personal goals?

I would say that the blog has helped me tremendously in the past few years. I’ve had the opportunities to write about some really intense issues, both painful ones and happy ones, including the surgical repair of my son’s ears so that he could hear properly for the first time in his life, and the death of my beloved grandfather, with whom I shared a relationship so close it was almost hard for me to put into words (and I’m a professional writer!).

By recording my thoughts on my blog, I’ve been able to take a critical look at the stressors in my life, many of which are real, and many of which are manufactured entirely by myself, and deserve to be revisited in a healthier way. Oftentimes, simply expressing my nervousness publicly makes me realize how much I have to be grateful for, and how sweating the small stuff is harming myself and my family.

Does the ritual of daily/weekly blogging give you motivation to pursue things you are passionate about?

As the full-time working mother of 5 young children, I’ve long felt that I don’t have any hobbies that are ‘my own’. I don’t have time for regular yoga classes or women’s karaoke nights. I don’t do scrapbooking or needlepoint, and I don’t prepare elaborate recipes for fun. I can barely find time to make dinner on a regular day. But blogging has changed this, and has helped me to understand that it’s ok to make time for myself – that I’m not just a wife and mother, but also my own person.

In fact, following this realization, I’ve recently taken on my first ‘hobby’, which is building a new business, PearlClasp.com, an independent project that gives me creative freedom far beyond what my day job allows. Sure, that may not be the leisure pursuit that most people would choose, but it works for me, and has given me the chance to work on an interesting idea because I want to, not because I have to. Most importantly, blogging has become my creative outlet, my way to express myself and to understand myself in new and interesting ways, and I’ve found that I always feel better when I can share life’s joys and God’s gifts with a wide audience, or to vent with my fingers instead of my voice.

Feel free to browse some of Sari’s posts if you have some free time this week. She’d be more than happy to have you.

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This post is part of a series on bloggers who have found direction or passion through blogging. If you would like to be featured in the Passion Series, please contact me through this form with responses to the above questions, and share your passions. Thanks!

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