Menopause as a Rite of Passage: A Psychospiritual Perspective on Midlife Transformation by a Menopause Therapist San Rafael and the Bay Area
The Menopause Transition as a Rite of Passage: A Psychospiritual and Developmental Perspective from a Menopause Therapist in San Rafael and the Bay Area
A Sacred Threshold: Beyond Symptom Management
We often hear about menopause through the lens of loss—loss of fertility, youth, vitality—and the overwhelming symptoms that accompany it: anxiety, panic, mood swings, irritability, hot flashes, insomnia. Much of the prevailing treatments center around managing or mitigating these perimenopause symptoms, which is both valid and important. But what if we could also hold a wider lens? What if menopause was not simply a medical event to endure or fix, but a profound rite of passage, a psychospiritual transition that holds within it the potential for deep transformation and renewal?
Menopause is a threshold, an initiation that marks the end of one stage of life and the beginning of another. Like all meaningful rites of passage, it has the capacity to reshape identity, purpose, and presence. The perimenopause to menopause transition is not just a biological event—it’s a spiritual and developmental milestone. A turning point that invites us to pause, reflect, and reorient toward what truly matters. It is a sacred unfolding in the landscape of a woman’s life.
The End of One Identity: A Developmental Shift
Just as adolescence brings a radical redefinition of identity, so too does menopause. In many ways, it mirrors adolescence, but in reverse. We move away from the roles of caregiving, productivity, and external validation, and are invited into a new phase of inner sovereignty. With menopause, there is a natural invitation—sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce—to turn inward, to reclaim what has been neglected,
Questions emerge:
Who am I without these roles?
What have I abandoned in myself?
What is longing to return?
This identity shift can feel disorienting—but it is also the seed of a new kind of freedom.
Five Psychospiritual Phases of the Perimenopause to Menopause Transition by a Midlife/Menopause Therapist in San Rafael and the Bay Area
Phase 1:The Call to Action-The Descent: Liminal Space as Fertile Ground
In traditional rites of passage, there is often a descent—a time when the initiate is symbolically or literally taken away from the familiar world. This is the liminal space: the in-between, where the old has fallen away and the new has not yet emerged. It is a place of uncertainty, and thus, transformation.
The symptoms of perimenopause—panic, irritability, foggy thinking, mood swings—can be seen as signs that the psyche is disoriented, untethered from the roles and expectations that once defined it. In this descent, the nervous system and the spirit are both recalibrating. The inner world demands attention.
With call to action, this descent, the dying process process begins as changes occur in body, mind, and spirit. At times it may feel like your body is betraying you. Grief arises as one is “not feeling right, not feeling the same.”
Rather than resisting the descent, we can meet it with reverence. This is a time for:
Deep rest
Inner listening
Dreamwork and reflection
In the descent, we begin to re-member the parts of ourselves we’ve lost or silenced.
Phase 2: Introspecting-Shadow Work
Going inward-contemplating-reckoning is the purpose of this phase. It involves reviewing past significant events, choices, regrets, losses and how they shaped you.
-Is there any part that needs further healing? Old wounds may rise up to be noticed and healed
-What needs forgiving? Of either yourself or another?
-Are there significant traumas that need healing?
-How have you grown from these experiences and what are you taking with you ?
Ways to do this work…first create some quiet, alone time where you won’t be interrupted…
-Contemplate areas and journal…
-Spend time in nature and just see what emotions, thoughts, signs emerge…Observe the changing seasons, walk barefoot. Let the natural world mirror your transformation
-Engage in creative expression…Draw, paint, collage …dance and sing…write poetry
-Pay attention to your dreams…
-Cultivate connection to inner guides, allies…
-Honor your lineage, your ancestors. Reflect on the women who came before you. What wisdom and wounds are you carrying from them?
-Attend a talk, workshop, ceremony for inspiration and guidance. Share stories and support in a circle
-Work with a therapist, practitioner, spiritual guide
-Read books
-Sit and just BE!
Phase 3: Transformation-A Sorting Through Process
-Continued reviewing, sorting, emptying, and letting go of what no longer serves you
-Grieving fully-may feel some sadness
-Dying process continues. Process of letting go.
-Continuing to need periods of time, space, aloneness
-Forgiving ourselves and others
-New insights start emerging
The Body As Ally
The body, during this transition, becomes a powerful teacher. Though many women feel betrayed by their bodies during menopause, this is also a time when the body begins to speak with more clarity and insistence. The nervous system becomes more sensitive. The body demands rest, nourishment, slower rhythms.
Somatic awareness becomes essential. Practices such as Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, mindfulness, yoga, dance, and breathwork can offer gentle, grounded ways to befriend the body anew. Rather than fighting against symptoms, we can ask: What is the body trying to tell me? What does this heat, this surge, this stillness want me to know?
In many traditional cultures, elder women were seen as wisdom holders precisely because they were no longer cycling outward each month. Their energy turned inward, making them more attuned to the subtle realms. The shift in hormonal patterns during menopause might be understood as a physiological support for spiritual deepening—a thinning of the veil between the inner and outer worlds.
Phase 4: Visioning and Awakening
-Adjusting to a new body, mind
-New focus on yourself-your body, mind, spirit…your needs
-Beginning of a rebirth:
-New ideas, new possibilities for your life
-Changes in work, relationships
-Growth in intuition and psychic, spiritual awareness
-Menopause is a Call from the Soul…
- A desire to create
- A hunger for spiritual depth
-A need for truth, simplicity, or solitude
Phase 5: Emerging (post-menopausal years and aging
Re-birth continues…
-Creating and embodying an authentic, soul-filled life
-Empowered, Confident, Wise, Passionate
-Trusting Oneself. Speaking One’s Truth-not concerned about what others think
Sacred time to ask:
What brings me alive?
What am I here to embody now?
What does my soul want to express before I leave this life?
Create a ritual and/or ceremony to honor yourself and be witnessed by your community
Empowering support for the your Midlife/Menopause Transition by a Therapist in San Rafael and Bay Area
Are you navigating the menopause transition and longing for deeper support? I offer psychospiritual therapy for women in midlife who are ready to meet this passage with presence and grace. Let’s walk this path together.