I have long suspected that the feeling of struggling with math is the feeling of not closely riding the coattails of the unconscious mind, sort of the opposite

I have long suspected that the feeling of struggling with math is the feeling of not closely riding the coattails of the unconscious mind, sort of the opposite of flow. When attempting something challenging for the first time, the intuition isn't developed yet and choices that aren't deliberately reasoned at some higher level are inevitably wrong. It takes a long time to train intuition and math is unforgiving about immediately telling people theyre wrong compared to most areas of thought.