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It’s one of the great paradoxes of mental life that we’re often unable to access our true feelings about important matters.
内心世界最大的矛盾之一是，我们常常无法触及自己对一些重大事件的真实感受。
What we really think about - for example - the character of a friend, or the next best move we should make in our career or our stance towards an incident in childhood... all of our conclusions on such critical topics can remain locked inside us, part of us but inaccessible to ordinary consciousness.
我们对某些事情的真正看法，例如某个朋友的性格，我们在事业上应该采取的最佳行动，或者对童年时期某件事的态度……我们对这些关键话题所有的真实想法都封闭在我们的内心之中，普通意识无法触及到的那一部分。
What we operate with instead are surface and misleading pictures of our dispositions and goals.
相反，我们的想法来源于性格或目标方面浅显且具有误导性的信息。
We may settle, in haste or fear, on the most obvious answers: our new friend is very kind, we should aim for the most highly paid job, our childhood was ‘fun’.
我们可能会出于恐惧，仓促地选择最平淡无奇的答案：我们的新朋友很善良，我们应该以收入最高的工作为目标，我们的童年是“有趣的”。
We ignore our deep truths first and foremost because we aren’t trained to solicit them; no one ever quite tells us that we might need to exhibit the patience and wiliness of an angler while waiting at the river bank of our deep minds.
我们忽视埋藏在心底的真相，最重要的原因是我们没有受过训练，不知道如何才能挖掘这些真相；从来没有人明确地告诉我们，当我们在内心深处的河岸边等待时，可能需要表现出垂钓者的耐心和权宜。
We’ve been brought up to act fast, to assume that we know everything immediately, and to ignore that consciousness is made up of layers, and that it’s the lower strata that may contain the richest, most faithful material.
我们从小就被教导要迅速行动，表现得无所不知，却忽视了意识是分层的，而最深层的内容才可能是最丰富，最忠实于心的。
We may also be hesitant because the answers that emerge from any descent into the depths and subsequent communion with our inner pilot can sound at odds with the settled expectations we have of ourselves in daylight.
我们也可能会犹豫不决，因为任何从内心深处得到的答案，以及我们随后与内心中领航员的交流，听起来可能与我们在白天的想法不符。
It might turn out that we don’t, in fact, love who we’re meant to love, or that we are scared and suspicious of someone who is pressing us to trust them or that we are deeply moved - and sympathetic to - a person we hardly know.
事实可能是，我们实际上并不爱我们理应要爱的人，我们害怕或怀疑那些强迫我们给予信任的人，或者，我们可能因为一个几乎不了解的人而感到深深的感动和同情。
It’s the profoundly challenging nature of our deep conclusions that keeps us away from our inner sanctum.
正是由于了解这种潜藏的想法太过困难，我们逐渐远离了自己内心的圣殿。
We prioritise a sense of feeling normal over the jolting realisations of the true self.
我们更愿意相信平凡的感受，而不是颠覆已有的认知，认识真实的自我。
The steps that we need to take in order to check in with ourselves are not especially complicated.
自我审视的步骤其实并不复杂。
We need to make time, as often as once a day, to lie very still on our own somewhere, probably in bed or maybe in the bath, then to close our eyes and direct our attention towards one of many tangled or murky topics that we know deserve reflection: a partner, a work challenge, an invitation, an upcoming trip, a relationship with a child or a parent.
我们只需要每天抽出一次时间，静静地躺在某个地方，可能是在床上，也可能是在浴室，然后闭上眼睛，把注意力集中到我们知道值得反思的许多错综复杂或模糊的话题上：伴侣、工作中遇到的挑战、一份邀请、即将到来的旅行、与孩子或父母的关系。
We might need a moment to locate our actual concern.
我们可能需要一些时间来确定我们真正关心的问题。
Then, disengaged from the ordinary static, we should circle the matter and ask ourselves with unusual guilelessness: ‘What is coming up for me here?’
然后，我们应该从平静中脱离出来，圈出我们关心的问题，以一种非常坦率的方式问自己：此时此刻我在想什么？
Holding the partner, work challenge, invitation or disagreement patiently in mind, we should whisper to ourselves: what do we really think?
面对心中牵挂的伴侣、工作中的挑战、他人的邀请或分歧，我们应该低声问自己：我们到底是怎么想的？
What is the real issue?
真正的问题是什么？
What is truly going on?
真实情况到底是怎样的？
What is actually at stake?
什么才是最重要的？
We should - to sound a little soft-headed - ask ourselves what our heart is whispering to us or what our gut is trying to articulate.
我们应该问问自己，我们的心在悄悄对我们说什么，或者我们的直觉想要表达什么——虽然这听起来有点优柔寡断。
We’re striving to access a sincere part of the mind too often crushed by the barking, harried commands of the conformist executive day to day self.
我们每天墨守成规，内心真诚的一面被自我严厉、烦扰的命令所压垮，但我们仍在努力触及它。
What we will almost certainly find is that - in a quasi-mystical way - the answers are already there waiting for us, like the stars that were present all along and only required the sun to fade in order to come to light in the circumference of the sky.
我们肯定会发现，答案就在那里，以一种近乎神秘的方式等待着我们，就像星星一样——它们一直存在，只需要等到太阳落山，就能在天际散发光芒。
We already know - much more accurately than we ever assume - who we should be friends with, what is good and bad for us, and what our purpose on this earth is.
我们心中早就明白，自己应该和谁做朋友，某事对我们有利还是不利，以及我们为什么存在于这个世界上——我们知道的远比我们想象的要多得多。
We just need to take the time to check in on our true selves.
我们只是需要花点时间，来审视真实的自我。
