Warriors of the Mind: Healing and Disciplining Your Thoughts

Welcome back to the Warriors’ Ascent blog, where we continue our deep dive into the foundations of healing, leadership, and human performance through the lens of the warrior ethos. If Episode 3 explored what it means to live the warrior ethos, Episode 4 takes us one level deeper—into the battlefield that matters most: your mind.

This week, Mike and Matt explore what it means to heal and discipline your mind—not only for recovery, but for high performance, growth, and long-term thriving.

“We want to be warriors of the mind.” – Mike Kenny

🧠 Metacognition: The Warrior's Mental Discipline

At Warriors’ Ascent, one of the core components of our healing program is metacognitive thinking—thinking about your thinking.

Why? Because your thoughts become your emotions, your actions, and eventually, your results. And if your thinking is distorted or conditioned by trauma, then every other part of your life is affected, too.

⚙️ System 1 vs. System 2 Thinking: How Your Mind Operates

Borrowing from Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, the episode unpacks a powerful mental framework to help us better understand ourselves.

🔄 System 1 – Intuitive Thinking

• Fast, automatic, emotional, and unconscious

• Built from habit, training, and life experience

• Great for emergency responses, instincts, routines

• Can become a trap when old patterns no longer serve you

🧩 System 2 – Logical Thinking

• Slow, deliberate, conscious, and effortful

• Used for planning, analysis, discipline

• Required to retrain broken or unhealthy habits

“System 1 will save your life—or ruin it. Depends on how it was trained.” – Matt Hastings

🚁 Military Training: A Crash Course in Mental Conditioning

Matt shares powerful aviation stories to illustrate how repetition, emergency procedures, and perfect practice saved lives in the heat of combat.

“I realized I was already pulling the emergency control lever before I consciously knew I needed to. That’s System 1.” – Matt Hastings

This level of reaction doesn’t come from instinct—it comes from relentless repetition and precision.

But here’s the challenge: what happens when you leave the battlefield or cockpit, but those ingrained reactions stay active?

⚠️ When System 1 Becomes a Liability

System 1 isn't just for combat. It’s also where our emotional habits live—the arguments you always have, the road rage that never fades, the stress spiral that comes out of nowhere.

“You keep falling into the same patterns. That’s your old training. And sometimes, it’s not serving you anymore.” – Mike Kenny

💡 Reprogramming System 1: Healing with Intention

So how do you break the cycle? How do you rewrite the story your body and brain are telling without your permission?

The answer: System 2.

System 2—your deliberate, logical self—is the only thing that can rewire System 1. And here’s how we help you do it:

🔁 Tools We Teach at Warriors’ Ascent

🔐 1. Pre-Commitments

Make a conscious plan before you're in the heat of the moment.“When that meeting gets tense, I’m going to breathe before I speak.”

⚙️ 2. If-Then Implementation Intentions

If X happens, then I’ll do Y.It's simple contingency planning for your emotions.

“If Karen at the HOA starts in again, then I’ll remind myself it’s not worth the cortisol.” – Matt Hastings

🧘 3. Coping Ahead (DBT Concept)

Visualize and rehearse your response to a known trigger.This is the mental equivalent of battle drills—except for family dinners and workplace emails.

🎯 From Combat to Civilian Life: Applying the Discipline

Matt and Mike unpack how the habits of military life—backward planning, perfect rehearsals, time-on-target precision—can become counterproductive in civilian or family life.

“You start asking, ‘Why is nobody on time?’ And suddenly you realize—you’re holding everyone to a standard that doesn’t even apply anymore.” – Mike Kenny

It’s not about lowering your standards. It’s about knowing when to apply them—and when to adapt.

💬 The Mindset Shift: From Reaction to Reflection

Healing the mind means:

• Identifying your triggers

• Understanding your recurring emotional loops

• Choosing a new pattern—before the old one hijacks you

This is where mindset becomes a weapon for growth. Where the warrior becomes enlightened.

🔄 From Survival to Transformation

It’s one thing to survive. It’s another to transform—to take what once protected you in combat and adapt it for peace, purpose, and connection.

“You don’t need to bring the warrior to every situation. But you do need to know how to bring him—or her—when it counts.” – Mike Kenny

📌 Key Takeaways from Episode 4

✅ You have two systems of thinking—both can be trained, both can be healed

✅ System 1 is fast but flawed; System 2 is slow but powerful

✅ Healing requires awareness of your patterns and a plan to rewire them

✅ Use tools like pre-commitments, if-then planning, and coping ahead

✅ You’re not stuck with the habits that trauma or training gave you—you can change

💙 Join the Tribe, Heal the Mind

At Warriors’ Ascent, we teach veterans and first responders how to rewire trauma into transformation through cognitive tools, mindful practices, and a supportive tribe of peers who walk the same path.

• 🌐 Learn more: www.warriorsascent.org

• 🧠 Start your journey: [Apply for the program]

• 🙌 Support the mission: [Donate here]

• 🎧 Subscribe to the podcast: [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]

“You won’t rise to the occasion. You’ll fall to the level of your training. So let’s train right.”– Mike Kenny