Blue Elephant Yoga & Mindfulness Center

Blue Elephant Class Schedule Page! Blue Elephant Workshops Check our live schedule page on MindBody Online for the most current class scheduling information.
The Blue Elephant Yoga & Mindfulness Center is dedicated to promoting positive psychospiritual healing and development through the practice of Yoga, Meditation and Mindfulness-Based approaches to spiritual counseling, life coaching, and education. We are located at: Blue Elephant Yoga & Mindfulness Center 744 San Antonio Rd. Ste. 19B Palo Alto, CA 94303 Yoga - Mindfulness - Compassion - Joy - Love
Please register online. Drop-ins welcome space permitting. The Blue Elephant was founded by and staffed by John Rettger & Praveen Chopra, Ph.D. students in clinical psychology and both are practitioners of yoga and meditation. About Blue Elephant Yoga and Mindfulness Center: The Blue Elephant was started by John Rettger and Praveen Chopra in order to provide yoga and meditation students with individual and small group instruction. In addition to yoga and meditation instruction, we offer life coaching and spiritual counseling. Our focus is on facilitating present-moment awareness and experiencing in order to bring about healing and realization of the individual's full-human potential. Our philosophy is grounded in the ancient practices of Yoga and Buddhism, as well as contemporary, and cutting edge Transpersonal & Western Psychology. Our teaching approaches are interactive, dynamic, and innovative. We have previously offered Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in the Palo Alto community with many of our students not only reporting positive outcomes- many of our students repeated our class two or three times. We recognize the ongoing evolution of ourselves, our students, and the world around us, thus we are committed to our own personal and spiritual development and continual development of our teaching and practice. As a way of honoring the ongoing requests we receive for individual instruction and additional class offerings, we felt that it was time to create a center that would provide our community with the opportunity to continue their personal and spiritual development. We are thrilled to have taken this step in creating Blue Elephant Yoga & Mindfulness Center. Important Note to Clients: The services we offer are not psychotherapy or medical treatment and are not intended to replace these types of treatments. We find it necessary to offer this clarification due to our professional backgrounds in clinical psychology and to provide clarity concerning the focus and scope of our services. Should the need for these types of services arise during participation in any of our classes, you will be provided with referrals. About our teachers: John Rettger, Ph.D. Candidate, M.A., M.S.Ed., RYT John is a graduate of Yoga Tree San Francisco's 200-hour teacher training program where he studied under the guidance of Les Leventhal, Elise Lorimer, Stacey Rosenberg, Christopher Tompkins, Jason Crandell, Jane Austin, and his mentor, Darren Main among many other amazing teachers. In addtion to completing yoga teacher training, John completed a 7-day Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Teacher Training retreat in early 2009 with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli of the UMASS Medical Center. John's teaching and practice are influenced by yoga philosophy, as well as his current dissertation research on psychospiritual integration in the context of a mindfulness and yoga-based approach to stress reduction and well-being enhancement at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. John expects to complete the Ph.D. early this summer. John is a cofounder and teacher at Blue Elephant Yoga & Mindfulness Center in Palo Alto, CA. In addition, John teaches Restorative Yoga at Yoga Source Palo Alto & Be Yoga, and occasionally subs Prenatal Yoga at Day One Center in Palo Alto. John continues to be inspired by his study of spirituality and psychology, and also enjoys capturing his yoga experiences through poetry. John is a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) with the Yoga Alliance. Off the mat, John works as a research assistant and lab manager in the Stanford University Early Life Stress Research Program. In addition, John has completed more than 2000 hours as a pre-doctoral clinical psychology intern at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology's Community Center for Health & Wellness. Praveen K. Chopra, MA, Ph.D. Candidate Praveen’s teachings are influenced by his interests in mindfulness, meditation, psychology, physics, yoga, and a holistic approach toward life and living. He has a graduate degree in physics from Columbia University and is currently a candidate for a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. He has 12 years of personal meditation practice and attended many long term retreats. He has completed the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher training courses approved by the Center of Mindfulness at UMass Medical School with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Saki Santorelli, and Bob Stahl. He is a certified Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) teacher and was trained by Paul Ekman and Alan Wallace. Praveen brings 15 years of corporate experience with Fortune 500 companies in the information technology and financial sectors. Presently he is engaged in developing a scale to measure Mindfulness. He is a cofounder and teacher at Blue Elephant Yoga & Mindfulness Center in Palo Alto, CA.
In addition to Blue Elephant Info, on this site you can also enjoy: articles on transpersonal topics commenting on and contributing articles, poetry, and fiction purchase books and other media meditate with one of the meditation podcasts

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This page has psychological articles on it, however it does not contain clinical psychological treatment resources and it is not run by a clinical psychologist or medical doctor. If you are seeking professional medical, psychological, or psychiatric treatment information, it is advised that you contact a specific professional in your area. If you are looking for a transpersonal-oriented psychologist, check out this directory:ATP professional directory

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Meditation Podcasts
We hope you enjoy the podcasts of the meditation classes offered by John! Prior to participating in the meditation, please read this important information concerning the potential benefits and challenges of mindfulness practices:
Informed Consent to Practice Mindfulness Meditation.

By clicking and streaming/downloading meditations, you acknowledge your reading and understanding the consent document.

Peacebank Yoga- 2/12/10

Yoga Source- 2/13/10

Namaste,
John

Created on 02/04/2003 10:24 AM by admin
Updated on 05/06/2011 01:47 AM by John

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