Yesterday, as I was sitting in front of my music stand with a challenging piece of new music, I found myself in a familiar place of frustration. The notes on the page seemed straightforward enough - after all, I've been playing flute for many years. Yet my fingers stumbled over passages that looked deceptively simple, and that all-too-familiar voice of judgment crept in: "I'll never get this."

But before I let those feelings take over, I paused long enough to smile, recognizing this moment as something familiar - a pattern I'd experienced countless times before. It wasn't until I learned to quiet my inner critic that I was able to see this resistance as a reminder of an old, but important lesson: slow down and take the time now.
Recognizing the Cycle
For many years, I relied primarily on natural ability in my learning journey. Across many areas of my life, I'd found ways to get by without pushing myself to my full potential. It took years of experiences before I began to recognize the relationship between resistance, practice, and growth.
The cycle is remarkably consistent now that I've learned to recognize it. Like my recent experience with this new piece of music - there's always that initial excitement, that moment of possibility when something new seems manageable enough. My confidence, built on years of experience, softly assuring me that I can handle this.
Then reality hits. In this case, it's during the first real practice session. What looked manageable on first glance reveals its true complexity. That early confidence begins to waver, and frustration creeps in. More often than not, I find myself ready to give up before I've really begun.
Admittedly, as a member of a wind ensemble, I can't just give up. I carry a responsibility to my fellow musicians. This commitment calls me back to practice even when resistance is high. And while this sense of obligation keeps me practicing, years of experience encourage me to remain focused and persistent.
What happens next has become familiar too. The real breakthrough usually comes when frustration peaks. After struggling repeatedly with a difficult passage, sometimes to the point of wanting to yell (and occasionally doing so), something shifts. It's as if the very act of reaching that point of complete frustration creates space for a different approach. I find myself able to step back, slow down, and begin again - this time with more patience and attention. And often, by the time we reach the concert, that same piece of music becomes one of my favorites - not because the challenging passages became easy, but because I found my way through them.
I experienced this same pattern in other areas of life. Take my college calculus experience. Used to breezing through high school math, I found myself thoroughly challenged by this new level of complexity. One particularly frustrating evening, I actually threw my textbook across my dorm room (much to my roommates' alarm - admittedly, it was a hefty tome!). Yet that moment of complete frustration led to an important realization: I had never really learned how to read a math book. I'd been relying on examples and natural ability rather than deeply engaging with the concepts. But once I had this new piece of learning knowledge, my experience in subsequent math classes was much more enlightening. (And as a side note... this early challenge certainly didn't diminish my love for math - I eventually became a math major!)
Working with Our Natural Rhythms
These experiences (and countless others) revealed something important: whether I'm learning something new, challenging myself in unfamiliar territory, or pushing beyond my comfort zone, my greatest moments of frustration most often have held the seeds of meaningful growth just waiting to be nourished. It's a pattern that appears again and again: when we hit that wall - in any area of life - it's rarely about lack of capability. Instead, it's often a sign that we're being called to engage more fully with the learning process itself.

This insight has transformed how I approach new challenges. Now, when I encounter resistance or feel that surge of frustration rising in my body, I recognize it as a familiar landmark on the path to growth. That early judgment of "I'll never get this" has become less of a verdict and more of a checkmark on the journey: "Ah yes, here we are - time to take a deep breath, slow down, dig in with patience, and pay attention." The most meaningful progress often comes not from pushing harder but from being willing to step back, whether that means returning to basics in music, revisiting foundational concepts in learning, or simply pausing to rebuild confidence in any challenging situation. When natural ability alone isn't enough, we discover a deeper kind of learning - one that values patience and engagement over quick achievement.
These days, when I sit down with a new piece of music, I try to greet whatever comes with a sense of familiarity. I can't avoid the cycle - I will still encounter tricky passages that lead to frustration - but I can pause to get my bearings, knowing that slowing down and staying with it will lead me where I need to go.
Perhaps the real art of growth isn't in avoiding these challenging cycles but in learning to work with them - understanding that each return to basics, each moment of stepping back, each willingness to slow down and engage more fully, creates space for something new to emerge. Like a piece of music that feels impossible at first but eventually becomes a joy to play, our challenges often hold hidden invitations to discover capabilities we didn't know we possessed.
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