Betty Mehling

Tribute

Born Betty Diane Radstone on February 25, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio, she came to California as a little girl when her family relocated to North Hollywood. Betty earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Valley State (which is now California State University Northridge), a degree she put to immediate and characteristic use. As a beat reporter for The Valley News in the late 1960s, she covered a range of stories from features to lifestyle and human interest pieces. Eventually, she was assigned the fire beat — where she had the good fortune, and Rick Mehling had the good luck, to meet. A firefighter who would later be called up from the reserves to the US Air Force, Rick, became her husband, her partner, and her person. Betty began suffering from frequent migraine headaches and, in characteristic fashion, decided to solve the problem herself. That search led her to Jin Shin Jyutsu (acupressure)— an ancient energy healing practice. While studying, Betty met Bonnie, who would become Betty’s long-time writing partner & collaborator. Together, they began a project to bring these practices to people who needed them — in a form anyone could use on themselves, without a practitioner. The result was a self-help book that simplified Jin Shin Jyutsu into clear, accessible steps designed for self-practice. The book, Relax!, has sold over 35 years across 10 printings. But perhaps Betty's most prescient work came in the 1980s, when she identified something most people weren't yet naming: childhood anxiety. Anxiety about test-taking, social pressure, arguing parents, and a world that was leaking its stress onto kids. Betty developed a program to give children tools to manage it themselves — delivering it in schools, camps, and community settings for decades. To this day, people who encountered the program, as kids, tell her son, Ben, what they remember about it, how much it helped, and what a remarkable person his mother was. She later transformed the work into a guided visualization audio program, Magic Island. She spent her whole career, in other words, teaching people how to help themselves. Betty was also, famously, a maker of friends. Her father Mack, introduced her to the world of puns, a gift she received enthusiastically. Her laugh was infectious. She talked to everyone. She remembered everyone. The running family joke was that a trip to the grocery store was a social event: by the time she reached the register, she and the stranger behind her had exchanged numbers and made vague but sincere plans. She was not a collector of acquaintances. She was a gardener of friendships — planting them, watering them, tending them across decades. The evidence of this was unmistakable in her final week, when her room overflowed with people: residents, staff, neighbors, old friends — all coming to say goodbye, to share a memory, to cry a little and laugh a little, because that's what Betty made you do. She gave away her crystal and rock collection as remembrances.

Friends & Family

She is survived by her son Michael "Ben" Benjamin Mehling, his wife Holly Anne Scheall-Mehling; Grandsons Robert "Tedd" Scheall Johnson and Miles Ryan Mehling, Granddaughter-in-Law Gennavie Johnson; her sister Leah Joy Radstone. She was preceded in death by her parents, Mack William Radstone and Selma "Sally" Radstone, her sister Rostelle Anne Radstone, and her BELOVED husband of 41 years, Frederick "Rick" Anthony Mehling Jr.