COLORADO SPRINGS — It's been nearly eight years since Meg Fredrick lost her sister, Beth, to suicide. Beth was only 51 years old when she took her own life.
"I had a ticket to go see her that weekend because I knew she was suffering," said Fredrick. "Her husband called and said, 'We lost her.'"
As a teacher, Fredrick shared her grief in the classroom with her students at Cheyenne Mountain High School in Colorado Springs, hoping to teach them just how special each one of them is.
"I said to my students all the time, the world will never be a better place without (Beth) ever, ever, ever, ever," said Fredrick. "It has lost something beautiful and magical and precious."
Fredrick hoped she was making an impact. She got proof when one of her high school students who had graduated two years earlier showed up at her classroom door.
"She said, 'Can we talk for a minute?' and she said, 'You saved my life because all I kept thinking about was how you said, 'I will always miss my sister, the world would never be a better place without her' and she said, 'I knew I had to help myself because I couldn't leave my sister, knowing the pain that you will always go through without yours,'" Fredrick said. "She hugged me, I'm sobbing, and she said, 'You just saved my life, so I'm here and I will always be here.' So if that's all I've ever done in my life, it's the greatest."
Now, after 26 years of teaching, Fredrick spends most of her time helping to teach other educators how to help their students cope with what she says is a mental health crisis among our children, that can easily lead to suicide. With the help of her co-founders, Jeff Kenefsky and Jackie Melin, they created the Colorado Springs-based non-profit The Mindfulness and Positivity Project.
"It's the greatest work I've ever done," said Fredrick.
Their team created in-person workshops and an online mental health curriculum they say is based on science and research about mindfulness and positive psychology. The goal is to help students, and their teachers, learn coping skills and resilence.
Kindergarten teacher Leah Benassi says the workshops have given her tools to help her students, many of whom were born during the pandemic, calm down.
"I think the biggest thing I'm seeing right now is a lot of anxiety with kids," said Benassi.
But Benassi acknowledges the workshops she's attended help her, too.
Leah Benassi: We have seven hours with a classroom full of five and six year olds.
Dianne Derby: That's stressful.
Leah Benassi: It can be.
Dianne Derby: But you're saying it's not when you have these coping skills.
Leah Benassi: They have. They have been game changers.
Dr. Aveen Banich stepped away from her medical practice in Opthamology to help teachers learn about simple practices, like incorporating sound into meditations in the classroom. She says they can make a difference in just a few minutes. During the workshops she does a sound meditation to help teachers relax.
"These practices help us feel better, they help us shift out of stressful states before a test or after lunch when a classroom is trying to get back into it," Banich said. "To there's a lot of different ways to fold it into the day."
Lessons teachers, and families, can use to help students succeed. For Fredrick, it all begins with a simple daily practice of gratitude.
"We have 12 years of a captive audience and we teach them everything they need to know math and science and all of the things, but we don't teach them how to love this one precious life they've been given."
The Mindfulness and Positivity Project offers courses, workshops and retreats for both educators and corporations to improve mental health. They also have a podcast where they talk with students and teachers about challenges they face and provide healthy ways to cope. To learn more click here.
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