Warrior Mentality vs Victim Mentality

The Pen and Sword Journal - Vol 52

I’m positive we have all experienced both at some point throughout our lives. While it should be our aim to constantly improve, at the same time, we are aware that keeping our consciousness at a high level is something that requires daily work and effort. Why is that? It is mostly because the deep-rooted instinctual drives within us often have a different agenda compared to the purposes one can have.

There is a quote attributed to Gichin Funakoshi, that goes like this:

“Karate is like boiling water: without heat, it returns to its tepid state.”

I believe this applies even more to raising the level of our consciousness, and also about operating from a warrior’s mindset. Both are closely connected in my experience, and a high level of consciousness helps to better channel our “Warrior Energy”.

Of course, there are moments when we must operate from a warrior’s mindset, but above all, we are human beings, therefore there are moments we must “keep our sword in the scabbard” and use other aspects of our being. There is a moment where we must bare our teeth and reveal our claws, but there are also moments where we must be tolerant, or moments where we must give love. There are situations that are more like a puzzle to be solved, rather than a battle to be fought. This is common sense.

But in this article, I will refer to those situations where we are truly challenged, and these different kinds of challenges require different ways we can express our Warrior Energy. We can express it as courage, perseverance, steadfastness, as showing some nerve in daunting situations, initiative, dynamism, controlled destruction, and more, but above all, we can express it as a mindset that is solution oriented and perceives challenges for what they really are, CHALLENGES.

Our Warrior Spirit, too, is like boiling water

And subsequently, the question is, “When does one’s Warrior Spirit return to its tepid state?”

There are many factors that contribute to that:

• We need a healthy dose of challenges in our lives. If we go for long enough without experiencing these challenges, and we repress them deep in our psyche, this same Warrior Energy that could once been channeled to overpower obstacles, now it is channeled internally as victimization. Consequently, it manifests as passive aggression toward others or outer circumstances.

• Excessive self-indulgence or being overly spoiled by others. These are both behavioral patterns that can often trace back to early childhood experiences and become ingrained in a person’s personality. The consequence of this is often immaturity. This is the reason why the practice of compulsory military service was one of the best ways to initiate young men and women in some countries into adulthood. Surely, this isn’t the only way for an adolescent to go through the metamorphosis of adulthood.

• Psychological trauma. This one is often treated with the help of a capable therapist and much love. However, the first two can be overcome with practice and inner work.

What happens when a Warrior Spirit returns to its tepid state?

It often becomes either apathy, or more often paves the path for the development of the Victim Mentality.

How does victim mentality manifest in one's mindset?

It manifests as many irrational beliefs, like:

• Life should be fair, and refusing to accept the harsh reality that life isn’t always fair.

• Seeing every adversity as a curse or desperate injustice.

• Pointing often the finger outwards, and always blaming others, for the way one feels, for one’s failures, and setbacks. In reply to the people adopting this mindset, Epictetus has a response:

  “If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.”

• The victim mentality always looks for others to do them favors, and often hopes for someone to “save them”, without them doing the required effort. They tend to be overtly passive in this direction.

• Refusing to acknowledge that some situations are challenges we need to face to evolve, even if they are emotionally tough. For example, someone might need to do a job they're not sure they can succeed at to support their family or for other reasons. A person with a victim mentality will focus on their current emotions and might give up because they're afraid of failing.

Keeping the “heat” of our Warrior Spirit boiling

How does Warrior Mentality Manifest in our lives?

• Being aware that life isn’t always fair, and doing their best to prepare themselves in mind, spirit and body, so that life’s setbacks, cheap shots from others, or unexpected events don't catch them off guard. The warrior strives to be like running water that doesn’t go stale.

• They don’t feed excessive paranoia and fantasy by labeling adversity as curses. Surely, I believe witchcraft and the evil eye are real, and I have learned many ways to counter them throughout our lives. But on the other hand, in my experience in Clinical Psychology, I have noticed that in many cases, it’s actually someone’s paranoia and victimization mentality that causes inner turmoil.

  And this inner turmoil can also give birth to powerful autosuggestion, since emotion and thought combine and operate towards the same direction with potent vigor.

  A warrior feeds a solution oriented mind, always looking to seize an opportunity, always looking to find a gap into some adversaries’ defense up to the last minute. They know that the moment their attention is diverted inward toward paranoia and victimization, they give to their adversaries the upper hand and increase the chances of defeat.

• The Warrior Mentality knows that the main person responsible for one’s setbacks is in front of the mirror. Their main competition is their selves of yesterday, if not their selves of a minute ago. They reflect and stop projecting their warrior energy as victimization or as a form of blaming. They make “click” in their mind that changes their perspective, and channel their power towards inner work and in getting things done in order to progress towards victory.

  Of course, after a stressful week, you and I might blame others for a late report or a drop in performance. But it’s up to us to snap out of it quickly and not let it last more than a few minutes. We have the power to change how we handle things if we stay centered and the Warrior Mindset matters to us.

• While we should welcome good gestures and help from others, we must be careful to not slip to the other extreme, and become so passive that we always wait for an outer figure to walk the path we must walk, or spare us, in order to face our problems.

  “The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.”

• Those who operate from a warrior’s mindset will see some tough situations as challenges, as an opportunity to practice self-control self-discipline, expand their comfort zone and gain experience. They are ready to give their best, and don’t let fear of failure break their spirit. On the contrary, they know that even if this experience turns out to be a failure, it will contain many lessons to learn. As they say:

  The main difference between the student and the master, is that the master has failed more times than the student has ever tried.

Final Words

It is easier for those who have awakened the warrior within them to recognize situations when they operate from a Warrior’s Mindset, and situations where they operate from the Victim’s Mindset. And most likely, a warrior’s “silent observer”, or his highest level of consciousness, will let them know about that. This silent observer will symbolically say, “I saw what you did there, you are slipping back to the victim mindset again…”

After that, it is our decision to either make the “click” in our mind and snap out of it, or snooze this inner messenger for a next time, just like an alarm clock, until one’s spirit returns to its tepid state, eventually.

Those who have not experienced this, are either suffering from trauma, and need the help of the therapist, or have not awakened their warrior spirit not even a bit. They will probably interpret what I am writing here as seeking unnecessary trouble and foolish. That doesn’t surprise me, though.

The warrior spirit isn’t like a big-bang explosion that happens all at once. It’s more like a gas valve that can empower or weaken the intensity of a flame gradually. We should work every day to keep its intensity high, so when death comes, it finds our warrior spirit still burning brightly.

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If you enjoyed this article, check out these free resources:

🔹 Weekly Reflection: Win Or Lose, Don't Lose Your Positive Attitude

🔹MAXIMIZE YOUR ENERGY: Secrets of Rest and Regeneration

🔹 6 things that block your Mind from reaching FLOW

🔹 It may seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first

🔹 INTERNAL vs. EXTERNAL MOTIVATION - Part 1: Some Secrets for Motivation, finding Meaning in Life and Understanding Others

🔹Why not everyone can be a good Teacher

🔹The symbolic of the KOI FISH myth

🔻📕Additional Resources:

If you've found the philosophy of the warrior spirit inspiring and want to delve deeper into this subject, I recommend checking out my book, "100 Thoughts for the Inner Warrior."

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