Coaching for high-conflict separation and divorce

This isn't a normal divorce, and you shouldn't have to handle it alone.

Leaving didn't end the control. It moved into the co-parenting messages, the document demands and the court calendar. Motion to Rise helps you recognize what's happening, calm your body before you respond, and walk into every legal meeting prepared.

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Stacy Bednar, MA, LPCC, founder of Motion to Rise

Stacy Bednar, MA, LPCC
Licensed psychotherapist in Minnesota since 2007. More than seven years in high-conflict family court.

The problem

A text arrives at 11 p.m. What do you do with it?

Your chest tightens before you finish reading. You want to answer right now, and explain, and defend yourself. An hour later you're scrolling through screenshots trying to remember what your attorney asked for last week.

That's what a high-conflict case does between appointments. Nobody on your legal team is assigned to that part, and it's where most of the damage happens.

What it costs you

  • Replies sent in the middle of a stress response
  • Attorney hours spent sorting your files instead of building strategy
  • Evenings lost to rereading the same messages
  • Second-guessing your own memory

How Motion to Rise helps

Practical, nonlegal support for the part of your case that happens between appointments.

01

Understand the behavior driving the conflict

Learn the patterns that keep high-conflict cases going, like baiting, shifting demands and blame reversal, so you can spot them early, see what usually comes next, and stop being caught off guard.

02

Regulate before you respond

Notice the alarm in your body, pause, and decide what actually needs an answer before you send anything.

03

Organize what matters

Dates, messages, documents and questions in one place, so you can hand counsel what they need without rereading everything.

04

Prepare and follow through

Walk into legal meetings with focused questions, then track what you and your attorney agreed to do next.

The RISE method

What to do when a message lands

RISE is the four-step process I teach for the moment a message, filing or new demand sends everything into overdrive.

Learn it in Year One
R

Recognize

Notice what's happening in your body before you answer.

I

Investigate

Read what the message actually says and check what you can verify.

S

Select

Decide whether to respond, document it, or bring it to counsel.

E

Execute

Carry out the decision you made, then put the phone down.

Start with the support that fits where you are

One to one

Private Coaching

For a case that's moving now. A Strategy Session to sort what's urgent, then ten weeks of private support.

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Ten-week course

The Rise Protocol: Year One

Live group coaching for the first year of a high-conflict case. Six to ten women. Founding cohort begins Spring 2027.

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$29 a month

The Community

A private community with a monthly live class and four groups by stage, from preparing to leave through life after the decree.

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Live on Zoom

Workshops

Two-hour live workshops on one specific problem. Next up: preparing to leave an emotionally unsafe partner.

See the next workshop
Meet your guide

Clinical training and lived experience

I'm Stacy Bednar, MA, LPCC. I've been a licensed psychotherapist in Minnesota since 2007, working with trauma, anxiety and the way chronic stress changes how people think and decide.

I also spent more than seven years in high-conflict family court myself. I knew the clinical language for what was happening to me, and it still didn't make the late-night messages or the court filings easier. I built Motion to Rise for the support I needed then.

Read my story
2007

Licensed psychotherapist in Minnesota since 2007

7+ years

Navigating high-conflict family court firsthand

1 focus

Women in high-conflict separation and divorce

You don't have to wait for the conflict to end to begin rebuilding your life.

Start with a free 30-minute call. No case details needed to book.

Book a free 30-minute call

Motion to Rise provides coaching and education. It is not psychotherapy, legal advice, legal representation or crisis care. If you or your children are in immediate danger, call 911 or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

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