Silence in the desert, silence in the cave, silence in the Eucharist. No prayer is so difficult as the adoration of the Eucharist. One's whole natural strength rebels against it. One would prefer to carry stones in the sun. The senses, memory, imagination, all are repressed.
Faith alone triumphs, and faith is hard, dark, stark.
But nothing is more nourishing than pure faith, and prayer in faith is real prayer. But it is precisely this renunciation of all desire to satisfy the senses that makes prayer strong and real. One meets God beyond the senses, beyond the imagination, beyond nature. It will run in fits and starts. You must simplify, de-intellectualize.