soul: crafting your inner world with fred butler
Meet Fred Bulter. A designer, creative director, DJ and visionary. Known for not only her unique perspective but understanding of how to create a more colourful world. She blends running the streets of London with restorative Yoga, curated music and hand crafted art. Having met Fred many years ago, I have followed her adventures not only as a stylist but as a refreshing voice within health and wellbeing. Journeying through the fashion world as an innovator and leader at the forefront of the Fashion Film revolution, her art has led her to work with the likes of Lady Gaga, TEED, Nicki Minaj and Beth Ditto. Found gracing the mat at Stretch and Colours Hoxton, since qualifying as a Yoga Teacher, Fred has also been connecting, mind, body and heart through music and meditation. Her radio show Lamaisonmusiq has been playing out across the airwaves during lockdown with each radio show uniquely themed combining sound and guided meditation.
You have been a powerful voice within the health & wellbeing field recently. When did you first step in to it and why?
It's funny because my family's resistance to competitiveness meant that I was never encouraged with sport so I always assumed I wasn't any good at physical exercise. However, my parents did practice yoga so that was one thing that was instilled in me from young - as was cycling. My favourite memories from childhood are the weekly weekend trips out across the Essex valleys on two wheels.
When I moved to London in 2006, I used my bicycle to get around town and it probably became part of my identity when I started blogging. I would always turn up to events and parties on my bike. When Ronojoy Dam worked for NIKE (2012) he invited me to a launch in NYC as part of a London posse including Grace Ladoja, Cassette Playa, Charlie Dark and Thristian Benjamin. That was a real seismic shift for me as Thristian asked me join the new BoilerRoom ladies football team and I got to know about RunDemCrew from Charlie. At age 32 I discovered I could run AND really enjoyed it.
Without going into too much of a personal story, the football saved me from burnout in work and the running saved me from despair when I latterly lost tenancy on my studio. RunDemCrew has been a saviour for so many people, it's such a strong community. I still go every week as I'll never, ever take it for granted, it's such a gift. It's now based from Brixton Street Gym and doing really amazing work with the grass-roots projects there.
Following on from running marathons and my activities in the offshoot BikeDemCrew, I was picked up by Rapha to be an ambassador for the launch of their Womens100 ride. This helped me get into long-distance sportives and the training gave new life to my love for cycling in the countryside by riding out to the Surrey Hills and Sussex coasts. This then lead onto being selected by STANCE socks to go on their "HoodToTrail" campaign of taking urban runners to the tracks and trails of the MontBlanc routes in Chamonix. Everything has naturally flowed and opened up new paths for discovery. All of which have been life-changing experiences which I have loved sharing thru my various online portals.
Most recently I have trained with StretchLondon to become a yoga teacher and specialised in Restorative Yoga with further training at TriYoga. I first met Stretch's founder when we both moved into halls at University, aged 19. For years he's been recommending I do teacher-training but I've always resisted. Now I've finally relented, it's been the cherry on the top of this journey of self-discovery. I describe it like the new vision you gain when you get glasses for the first time - the world is suddenly gleaming right infront of you, in all it's glory.
With much of your work you blend yoga, running, music and art, how do these worlds collide?
It's a combination of everything that I love. I DJ, so music has always been integral to everything that I've done, even from my fashion show when I graduated from Brighton University and I asked a music student to devise the soundtrack. When I was showing at Fashion Week I was sponsored by Red Bull Music Academy to collaborate with musicians on the live presentations and fashion films. More recently I've crossed over into exhibitions and commissioned NatureBoy on the soundtrack for my solo show at NOW Gallery "Harmonics in Space". I blend multi-sensory experiences as healing destinations from both my artwork to my own yoga classes for which I carefully curate cosmic playlists. The dream would be to work with a musician on orchestrating an ambient soundscape specially for my Restorative Yoga sessions.
A lot of your creativity is based around colour, why is it important?
My primary driving force and focus is always colour. I don't think I have Synesthesia but colour definitely dictates my life experience and defines my memories. It gives me blissful joy every day and in equal measure it can also disturb me if I find a colour-way that is discordant to my feelings. Colour isn't a physical fixed entity, it's light-waves experienced in varying visceral interpretations. I believe that everyone perceives colour differently and perhaps I'm more sensitive to most. This part of my personality has subconsciously drawn me to other people with a similar sensibility and brought about new friendships - especially one of my best friends Kitty Joseph. I guess it's a bit like a religion, you naturally gravitate to others who see the same Devine as you.
You have just started live streaming a radio show from home, tell us a bit about it…
It came about with the early emergence of the Corona Virus Pandemic paranoia. My boyfriend and I had suggested to friends to go to the Buddhist Centre to meditate but they didn't want to go as the concept of social distancing was just arising. We came up with the idea to bring meditation to them as they weren't able to get to the meditation! That was two weeks before Lockdown, so luckily we had already recorded the jingle at Thomas's studio and sourced the necessary equipment that we needed before everything shut down. Then it became apparent how necessary it was to keep sharing our regular meditations and mix it with the music that we enjoy at home either side of our own practice.
I'm on a mission to promote anti-screen, anti-device. Both my art and yoga are aimed at providing an antidote to the detrimental somatics of holding technology infront of hearts and closing off compassion and embodied communication. It's a massive topic but I'm passionate about people waking up to wasting their lives slumped over a screen, shortening their breath and increasing anxiety instead of being aware of the beauty and opportunity in the very present moment infront of them.
So now, more than ever, I wanted to provide something that didn't need any visual stimulation from an interface and offer a dedicated break from the deluge of online distractions vying for attention during lockdown.
How has meditation helped you and what different types of meditation do you work with?
The beauty of meditation is opening up your awareness to your every day experience to find a deeper meaning of life.
Once you recognise that your life is governed by thoughts (neural pathways), it’s possible to start aligning your values and beliefs to your true nature. Instead of pedalling under the surface current in the turbulent ocean of survival , you can start moving towards effortlessly skulling in the peaceful flow of a mill pond. It's just about recognising when your preoccupations of the past and fears of the future are governing and distorting your direct experience - and ultimately life. As soon as you realise this, it's a total game-changer. You don't get lost in thought because you now have the awareness it's happened and can bring yourself back to your felt-sense and the embodied feeling of life itself. We are controlled by our primitive survival brain which overrides our more evolved capacity for empathy and emotion. So it's a case of training our minds to shift from the old brain to the new one. Like any training, it's a matter of consistent practice.
““The beauty of meditation is opening up your awareness to your every day experience to find a deeper meaning of life.””
I've been lucky enough to discover and investigate this via The Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green who practice both "The Mindfulness of Breathing" and "The Metta Bhavana". The later is a technique to start appreciating the oneness between all beings. You grow into the epiphany that there is no "self" and no "other". You send well-wishing to yourself, your loved ones, people who you don't know and people you don't get on with. Over time you generate feelings of friendliness for all of these connections and realise that there is no separation. We are all one. You realise that everyone equally wishes to be well and happy. Even if someone has completely different ethics to yourself, you can extend kindness towards them.
As soon as you walk into the Buddhist Centre everyone is opening doors for you, putting down cushions for you, handing you cups of tea and biscuits and asking how your day has been. If only the world had the same level of intrinsic fundamental care and consideration for others............... there would be no suffering, only love. Which is all I wish, hope and pray for. PEACE, FREEDOM and LOVE.
For anyone who is wanting to try meditation for the first time, what advise would you offer them?
Don't frame it as "Meditation". That automatically sounds like a struggle. There is no right or wrong. Consider it as a moment of stillness. Its a break of no interruption or distraction. It's a chance to be quiet to recalibrate and recoil your own well-being. A chance to get to know yourself better. Forget everything that is invading your attention. Simply transition your awareness to your body. Your mind might be all over the place, but your body can be still. We move through life with our bodies so they are the absolute best place to start reclaiming it. The most immediate tool for reconnecting with your body is your breath because its an internal sense. You literally start to discover your innate goodness by travelling inside. If you can free your psyche from its conditioned story by guiding it into its own creativity for just a few minutes - bingo, that's it. Keep catching your mind wandering off and bringing it back to this place of comfort by focusing on the breath = that's meditation. The more you can dial down the background noise of your inner radio, the more the volume of life turns up! You start to see the absolute wonder in the smallest, most mundane things. It's pure magic.
(For example you don't just walk across grass anymore, you see scatterings of daisies and step aside as not to squash the blooms. You don't just walk along a pavement, you see a lost snail en route to the curb and pick it up to put back in the bushes etc.).
Many of us are in isolation at the moment all over the world, how do you think that we can grow from this situation?
It's a blessing. We can no longer take anything for granted. This is Mother Nature putting on the breaks to slow us down to confront climate change. We've ignored the signs and felt content to let it continue. The responsibility falls on all of us as individuals. Now we can't automatically get from A to B with whatever luxuries we have grown accustomed to, so its highlighted what is truly important in life. Health and family are now hugely more significant than materialism. It's massively unsettling and undoubtedly an unrecoverable blow to our global economy. But we have to take this hit to safeguard the future generations chance which we have been sabotaging for our own immediate gain, for too long.
I've personally lost my own mother in all of this, in the most brutal circumstances which only anyone else effected will begin to comprehend. So I'm at total liberty to share this view. I can only come to terms with my own loss if I can believe that this sacrifice is part of the cosmo's greater plan. I can exchange heartbreak for hope. I desperately wish for this Pandemic to turn around the drive for a destructive, consumerist evolution and back-track to a love-centred care for the eco-system that we are all part of and sustains us all. Nature rules. We need to be humble and stop trying to control that which we are part of, not bigger than.
Let's lean into this pause and see what we can do to adapt our lifestyles to make a significant contribution to making the world a better place. Less travel, less waste, less consumption, less convenience = more consideration and compassion.
connect with fred and find out more…
follow her on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fredbutlerstyle/
listen to her radio show: Mixlr for live shows on Sunday evenings 8pm - 10pm & Mixcloud for archive episodes & meditation medley
follow lamaisonmusiq: https://www.instagram.com/lamaisonmusiq/
