The following is an outline for creating your own prayer or ceremony as a framework to mark the end of your menstrual cycle and your transition into menopause written by Sara Friedland Ben Arza.
While you prepare your personal prayer/ceremony it is worthwhile trying to envision the context in which you want to use it, since that will impact the nature of the prayers and your feelings as you recite them.

● Think about where and with whom you’d like to say this. Would you prefer a quiet beautiful place which you love, a holy location, or at the mikveh you usually attend? Will it be part of a gathering of friends, said with your partner or alone?
● Would you prefer to say it by itself, as part of a tevillah ceremony, or along with baking challah, lighting Shabbat candles, giving tzedakah, getting together with friends or at another event?

If you don’t want to write your own prayer from scratch, skip to Step 2. There you can select from among the phrases in each section and combine them into something that will be meaningful to you – following the structure of praise, supplication and gratitude. Alternatively, at the end of the section there are three short “Pre-Formulated Prayers” you can read.

Steps in the preparation of a personal prayer and/or tevillah ceremony

Step 1 – Listen to your heart

Find a quiet, relaxing place to sit, without any screens, and where you won’t be disturbed.
Prepare paper and writing materials and answer the following questions:

1. What do the following words or terms mean to you – associate freely:
menstruation, lack of menstruation, youth and aging, fertility, menopause, change of life, retirement.

2. Do you have any symptoms of menopause? How are you coping/did you cope with them? Do they elicit any concerns personally or concerns vis-a-vis your relationship with your husband?

3. Close your eyes, and focus on the sensations in your body. Open your eyes and scan your body. How do you feel about the changes that are happening?

4. Contemplate the intellectual and emotional processes which you are experiencing – what have they brought into focus? What about you has become stronger or evolved? Has anything diminished?

5. What is your request from G-d regarding these symptoms or processes?

6. If you have the desire to formulate a blessing or express gratitude for something in the process you have gone through so far – please write it down.

7. What were your feelings about going to the mikveh when you started, and how have they changed over the years?

8. Try to recall the emotions that arose when you checked yourself and prepared for the mikveh; as you left your home, as you waited for your turn, as you met with the mikveh lady, entered the water, the laws of separation from your husband. Write down all your associations.

9. How do you feel about leaving all that behind?

10. What would you like to request from G-d as you transition into a time when the laws are no longer relevant?

11. Is there any part of this ritual or an outcome of observance for which you would like to praise or express gratitude to G-d?

Copy your answers to questions 5,6,10, and 11, then edit and craft them into a personal prayer. Add a phrase which invites G-d in, using words which feel fitting to your prayer. Add a personal address to God.

This might be sufficient, and you will have succeeded in creating a prayer that fits perfectly as you stand before G-d. However, if you wish to enrich your prayer with additional expressions, continue with the next step.

Step 2 – Adding Structure

To give further structure to your prayer, you may want to follow the general framework of the Amidah prayer: Praise, supplication and gratitude – with the addition of a description of the transition. Each section below has suggestions for what can be added.  Feel free to choose one or combine from among the phrases in each section:

1. Approach and Praise

● My God / My God and the God of the Matriarchs / My God and the God of my ancestors.
● Who created man with intelligence and formed woman with wisdom.
● Who has kept me alive and sustained me, Who has bestowed life upon me and upon my children, and has brought me to the stage of life when my body is no longer fertile.

2. Description of the Transition

● For a woman who did not enjoy going to the mikveh:
When I was fertile, I did my best to observe your laws and immersed in the mikveh as You commanded.
● For a woman who is combining her prayer with a tevillah ceremony:
From the wellspring of my mother’s womb I was born, and from the wellspring of my womb life emerged. Now, as I transition through this next stage in my life, I enter the water to be born anew to a reality without a menstrual period and with a new kind of freedom, to a time when my body is no longer fruitful, yet the spirit and soul within me continue to develop and flourish.
● For a woman who plans to continue to use the mikveh before Yom Kippur, ascending to the Temple Mount, or other personal reasons:
1. When I was fruitful, I immersed in order to purify from my menses; from now I shall purify myself to approach Your Holiness.
2. When I was fruitful, I immersed as You commanded to join with my husband in intimacy; from now I shall immerse to come close to your Presence/ to feel holiness/for renewal.

3. Supplication

● Look down from Your holy abode in the heavens and bless my home – my marriage and our children. Bless me – my body with all its changes and my mind and soul as they continue to evolve.
● Your commandment granted our union the gifts of longing, desire, and the benevolence of love and renewal. May you continue to rest Your Shekhinah between us with vitality and with love, with longing and desire, with renewal and holiness even as my body has changed.
● My Creator, Who granted me the gift of pregnancy, birth, and nursing and created within me the strengths of motherhood – please help me to act with wisdom as my body changes, to respect and love it, take care of it and listen to its needs during the next periods of my life.

4. Gratitude

● Thank you for implanting the secret of life within me. May You continue to bless me with long life and grant me joy, vigor, peace, and blessing.
● I am grateful to have experienced the cycle within my body which impacted my life, my being, and my intimate relations. Please enable me to continue and renew myself as the moon, and to live a life that balances love and awe, kindness and justice, relaxation and action between me and You, my Creator, between me and my partner, between me and my environment, between me and myself, and please bless me with good health and peace.
● After years of separation and reunification, separation and reunification, we are grateful You have now bestowed on us the kindness of continuous togetherness. Help us adjust to the gift of a new stability, to cultivate our love, our friendship and dedication, and continue to rest your Shekhinah and peace between us.

Pre-Formulated Prayers

  1. My Lord, Who created man with intelligence, and formed woman with wisdom. During the years of my fertility, I endeavored to obey Your laws and immersed as You commanded. Look down from Your holy abode in the heavens and bless my home – my marriage and our children. Bless me – my body with all its changes and my mind and soul as they continue to evolve. I am grateful to You for implanting the secret of life within me. May You continue to bless me with long life and grant me joy, vigor, peace, and blessing.
  2. My G-d and the G-d of my mothers, Who has enabled me to arrive to this moment.
    (For those combining a prayer upon immersion: As I transition through this next stage in my life, I enter the water to be born anew to a reality without a menstrual period and a new kind of freedom, to a time when my body is no longer fruitful, yet the soul and spirit within me continue to develop and flourish.)
    Your commandment granted our union the gifts of longing, desire, and the benevolence of love and renewal. May you continue to rest Your Shekhinah between us with vitality and with love, with longing and desire, with renewal and holiness even as my body has changed.
    After years of separation and reunification, separation and reunification, we are grateful You have now bestowed on us the kindness of continuous togetherness.  Help us adjust to the gift of a new stability, to cultivate our love, our friendship and dedication, and continue to rest your Shekhinah and peace between us.
  3. My God and the God of my ancestors, Who formed my life and the lives of my children within me, Who has brought me to a time when my body is no longer fruitful. From the wellspring of my mother’s womb I was born, and from the wellspring of my womb life emerged.
    (For those combining a prayer upon immersion: Now, as I transition through this next stage in my life, I enter the water to be born anew to a reality without a menstrual period and with a new kind of freedom, to a time when my body is no longer fruitful, yet the spirit and soul within me continue to develop and flourish.)
    My Creator, Who granted me the gift of pregnancy, birth, and nursing and created within me the strengths of motherhood – please help me to act with wisdom as my body changes, to respect and love it, take care of it and listen to its needs during the next periods of my life.

I am grateful to have experienced the cycle within my body which impacted my life, my being, and my intimate relations.
Please enable me to continue and renew myself as the moon and to live a life that balances love and awe, kindness and justice, relaxation and action between me and You, my Creator, between me and my partner, between me and my environment, between me and myself, and please bless me with good health and peace.

Step 3 – Creating a Tevillah Ceremony

You may choose to be inside or outside of the mikveh waters for your ceremony. You can sing, dance, recite your prayer, or give tzedaka.
If you plan on immersing, think about how many times you want to immerse and the focus or significance you will attach to each immersion. Below are several suggestions to guide you:

Immerse three times (option 1)

1. First immersion – focus on your childhood, the time before you had your period.
2. Second immersion – focus on the stage of menstruation and fertility.
3. Third immersion – focus on the phase which is beginning now, when your fruitfulness moves from your body to other realms.

Immerse three times (option 2)

1. First immersion – the past (gratitude).
2. Second immersion – the present, the transition (uncertainty, concerns, the unknown).
3. Third immersion – the future (hopes, freedom, prayers).

Immerse for different aspects of the transition in your life

Each tevillah represents a different change; pray for all involved in it. For example, the changes in:

➔ your body
➔ your relationship with your partner
➔ other familial relationships (children, parents, siblings)
➔ your social activities
➔ professional life
➔ cognitive changes
➔ areas of creativity

Immerse seven times – once for each of the seven kabbalistic spheres – Chesed, Gvurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, Malchut.