The Difference Between Rest and Retreat
- 1 day ago
- 10 min read
Written by Kim Lackie, Transformational Guide and Alchemist
Kim Lackie is a retired Canadian law enforcement professional with 27+ years of service, a Master Practitioner in Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) / Time Line Therapy® (TLT®), NLP Coaching and Hypnotherapy, and founder of Sovereign Path Alchemy, guiding women through navigating the major life transitions of midlife.
You have stepped back from your life, and part of you feels relieved. But quiet does not always mean healing. Sometimes it means hiding. Here is how to tell which one you are actually doing, and why your nervous system already knows the answer before your mind catches up.
Are you resting or retreating? How to tell the difference
You have stepped back, and part of you is grateful, but how do you know if you are actually resting, or simply avoiding your own life for a while?
It is a harder question than it sounds, and I did not have a real answer to it for a long time. During the early years of raising my triplets, while working a demanding career and running a household, there were a couple of times I got away for a few days on my own. I told myself, and everyone else, that I simply needed some peace and quiet. That was true. I did need the quiet and physical rest badly. Though, looking back now, twenty years later, I can see that was not all that was happening in those getaways.
I was also, without fully realizing it, sitting with loss I had not given myself permission to feel. A loss over a version of my life I had quietly and quickly let go of. A grief where my own needs had been sitting untouched for years. Grief over a career that had shifted in ways I had chosen for convenience and practicality. The slow loss of connection to people, simply because the relentless cycle of family and work had left no room. Even the loss of unfulfilled expectations and an overwhelming sense of sadness when I should be grateful and happy. Or, so I told myself.
The quiet solitude I was seeking was the type of rest for both my physical and mental states. However, it was also, at the very same time, a kind of retreat. A distraction from the loss and sadness that I could not rationalize nor understand at the time. Both things were true at once, and for years I could not have told you which one I was actually in.
When rest is actually withdrawal
I do not think this means the getaways were wasted. The time alone genuinely restored the energy within me each time. Though I have come to believe both things can be true in the same stretch of days, real rest and a very quiet form of avoidance, sitting side by side.
Rest, the kind that actually restores something, tends to have a quality of return to self. To step forward as something in you slowly comes back online. Energy returns. A small appetite for the world returns with some small adjustments to carry on with eagerness and excitement.
However, retreat has a different quality. It does not return anything on its own. It simply pulls a curtain to whatever is too tender to look at yet. Like the grief that I carried, not knowing what it was, it sat there completely unmoved once the quiet ended, unresolved. The quietness never actually addressed it. The feeling of heaviness stayed, always present.
Years later, when the curtain could no longer keep it hidden, I had to face the accumulated effect. The energy it took to keep it hidden and not address the issues for years had me in a cycle of depression, anxiety, and physical pain for years. It was in 2020, when we all experienced an unprecedented shift in the world, that I noticed my inner world was mirrored in what was happening in the external one. I started to take stock of the areas of my life I had been avoiding, the conversations I was too nervous about the outcome to even begin to voice, the small actions I needed to take to improve my health, and even the emotions that rose up without warning. I started to pay attention and sat with them.
What I realized, in my own inner dialogue, was that if I truly wanted to be happy, I had to take steps to make that happen. The way things were going was not sustainable any longer. So began a more honest conversation with myself, one that meant taking accountability for my decisions, making daily time for my own needs, and saying no without guilt. This was not an overnight solution. It has been a journey of self-discovery over the past six years.
This has brought me to a place of seeking to know more, to share more, to improve and grow personally, as well as releasing the need to control the outcome of things by trusting the path I am on, which has me sharing the difference between these two parts of myself. For as I continue to practice genuine rest, the kind that connects me to a deeper level of myself, I have started to feel a surge of new energy and rejuvenation, well beyond what a trip to the spa ever gave me. My practice has given me the courage to pull back my curtain and ask the questions. It has given me the awareness to honour the answers that surface, be grateful for the wisdom, and take action in small ways toward a more peaceful and joy-filled life.
Why this is so easy to miss
Part of what makes this so hard to see in ourselves is that both experiences can involve the exact same activities, long walks, quiet mornings and evenings, time alone, diving into passion projects. These activities are not what separate healing from hiding. What separates them is the direction of movement underneath, the intention behind the getaway, the time for self.
Healing tends to move toward something, the safe and connected state, even without a clear destination yet. There is a felt sense of thawing, of something in you loosening its grip. Hiding tends to move away from something, and only away, as in flight, shutting down, bracing, or numbing. Like the avoidance of a decision that needs to be made. Away from an emotion that has not yet been allowed to move through fully.
Yes, time away for rest can feel like peace for a while. Though it can be closer to distraction than to peace, where the numbness tends to suppress the need to move through the emotions that arise. This process will eventually stop working. Whatever was being avoided will show up as signals in the body, as dis-ease, dis-comfort, or destruction.
This is rooted in how our bodies, specifically our nervous system, distinguish between threat and safety. When we are in a state of avoidance, the nervous system remains in a protective, slightly heightened state, what neuroscientist Stephen Porges calls sympathetic activation. Research on the polyvagal theory shows that the nervous system has three states. Ventral vagal, safe and connected. Sympathetic, fight or flight. Dorsal, shutdown and freeze.
When we genuinely rest, the vagal tone shifts, allowing the nervous system to move into what is called the social engagement system, a state where true restoration becomes possible. Rest tends to move you toward something. Curiosity, appetite, a small want returning. It is a slow opening. Retreat, by contrast, only moves you away, away from a decision, away from grief or another emotion, away from the parts of your life that feel too tender to face.
The question worth asking
Ask yourself right now, when you picture your quiet days, does it feel like you are moving toward something, or only away from something? Notice how your body reacts. The distinction alone can tell you most of what you need to know.
You do not need a tidy answer immediately. Sometimes it takes time to gently ask before the honest answer surfaces, time to allow your nervous system to shift out of whatever state it is in and truly feel safe. This takes time because thinking alone is not enough. The willingness to ask the question and to sit with the silence is often the first sign that you are already closer to healing than to hiding, because true avoidance rarely wants to be questioned.
What actual rest tends to ask for
I am not suggesting that we turn rest into another task to perform correctly. It is about noticing, honestly and without judgment. Does your version of slowing down have a pulse? Are you quietly stirring back to life underneath the time you scheduled, or are you closing the curtain to your own kind of avoidance?
If you are not sure which one you are in right now, that uncertainty is not a failure. It is simply worth staying curious about.
Five ways to tell the difference
If you want something more concrete to check yourself against, these are the markers I have come to trust most.
Ask if the quietness was chosen or collapsed into: Intentional silence restores. Collapse from exhaustion rarely does on its own. There is a significant difference between stepping back on purpose and collapsing because you have nothing left to give. One feels like a choice. The other feels like surrender because you are too depleted to do anything else. Both can look identical from the outside. Only you know which one is true.
Check what is still there when the quiet ends: If the same thought, the same decision, the same emotional knot is sitting exactly where you left it, untouched, unresolved, something may likely be avoided rather than healed. Genuine rest changes something. It does not resolve everything, but it changes the pressure of what you are carrying. If your quiet time ends and you are holding the same weight or dread upon returning, that is worth noticing. Not with judgment, as the rest was not wasted. It simply means there may be something underneath that needs a different kind of attention. Having this awareness can begin a path to addressing your real needs. That is worth exploring more.
Ask yourself plainly, am I resting or am I hiding? The honest answer tends to surface faster than you might expect if you are willing to sit with the question. Not to judge yourself. Simply to notice. Is this time bringing something back to me? If yes, that is rest. Is this time only taking me further away? If yes, that is retreat. You do not need certainty. You only need honesty and an openness to be curious about what comes up.
Notice what your body is telling you: When you ask yourself these questions, notice your body's response. Are you bracing, jaw tight, shoulders drawn up, holding your breath? Or do you soften, shoulders dropping, chest opening, breathing deepening, maybe even a release of emotion? Shallow, rapid breathing usually signals the nervous system is still in a protective state. Long, deep breaths signal that your body feels safe enough to genuinely rest. Sleep that leaves you unrested is another signal worth noticing, often a sign that avoidance, not rest, is what is actually happening. Learning to create a dialogue with your body and the sensations and signals it offers is the beginning of understanding what you truly need.
Return to these questions gently and often: Give yourself space and time to ask and receive what surfaces. You do not need to arrive at a perfect answer or be quick in making big moves. It is the willingness to ask the question over time that is in itself a sign that you are already moving toward genuine restorative rest rather than away from it. Trust the process.
Moving forward
Today, I can feel the difference clearly. I have finally experienced the other version of myself. My days have an intention behind the stillness. A daily choice to begin the day differently by honouring my body, mind, and spirit, to listen in the quiet for more clarity and discernment. This version of quiet acknowledgment was for my needs alone and resulted in the daily physical pain I had for years disappearing.
Looking back, I can clearly see I was doing both. Resting for the physical body and mental overwhelm and lack of sleep, as well as retreating for what I did not have the energy or clarity of mind to understand or contemplate. When I was attempting to find relief in my life, I was stepping away from myself. I did not have the capacity or the resources to understand what was happening or what I needed deeply.
The wisdom that has risen since 2020 has allowed me to dig deeper and find the quietness I require. Only now can I see it was more than just a few days a year. Now, I am able to have stillness as a daily practice. It still looks similar from the outside. The same daily walks, time alone, and need to just be quiet. Though the intention underneath is very different.
I did not always know how to tell the difference between these two states in my own life. I only know it now because I have lived both versions. My mission, in the work I do now, is to help others recognize this distinction sooner than I did. Everyone deserves to know the difference. Rest is not something to earn. It is something you deserve to give and worthy to have for yourself every day.
Ready to explore this deeper?
If you would like to explore this distinction more deeply in your own life, to understand whether your rest is truly restoring you or whether there is something underneath that needs a different type of attention, I invite you to a Path Clarity Conversation with me. Visit here to book a free session.
Read more from Kim Lackie
Kim Lackie, Transformational Guide and Alchemist
Kim Lackie is the founder of Sovereign Path Alchemy and the creator of the Sovereign Embodiment Method, a clinically grounded framework for identity transformation designed for women navigating the major life transitions of midlife. After more than 27 years in Canadian law enforcement and raising triplets, she knows firsthand what it means to lose yourself inside the demands of a life built for everyone else. She works with women through some of life’s biggest transitions to reach the identity wound underneath, not just the surface adjustment. She holds Master Practitioner certifications in Neuro-linguistic Programming / Time Line Therapy® and Hypnotherapy. She writes from her own lived experiences and clinical depth.
Citations:
Porges, S. W. "The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation." W.W. Norton, 2011.
