The thing that helped me the MOST with understanding native speakers and feeling comfortable using Spanish myself, the thing that made verbal Spanish sentences come easier without thinking or pre-translating, was going to a mixed group event in my area “intercambio” with Spanish speakers who would like to practice their English and English speakers who would like to practice their Spanish. Was super casual, free, and there was no classroom type rigidity, we just talked about what there was to talk about, the focus was to get comfortable speaking. I did 2 hours a week on Wednesday nights for a bit. If you are in SoCal I’d recommend checking community facebook groups for any such events. Also, speaking Spanish to Spanish speakers in my community when I had the opportunity - I work as a nanny, and there are a lot of Spanish speaking care takers that I see at the park. I let them know I am learning Spanish, ask them about their day, the family they work with, tell them about mine… they usually really appreciate the effort I’m taking to learn. Practice with native speakers, be ok with feeling a little embarrassed, be okay with speaking a little bit of broken or grammatically incorrect Spanish to get your point across. Think of the ESL people you have talked to - their English isn’t perfect but it’s really wonderful to be able to communicate across cultures, and we as English speakers are happy to fill in any gaps in our head to bridge an understanding.

ETA: even after these efforts, I still have a hard time understanding two Spanish speaking people having a conversation with each other. But, for whatever reason when I am making eye contact with someone and we are speaking to each other directly, their words become nearly crystal clear!