A retreat is not a vacation. Vacations offer distraction from ordinary life. Retreats remove distraction to let what is underneath become visible. The modern practice of silent meditation retreats — Buddhist Vipassana ten-days, Zen sesshin, Christian Ignatian exercises, Tibetan nyingne — all build containers where inner life can surface without the usual noise.
The disclosure on every honest retreat pamphlet is true: it will not all be pleasant. What usually gets drowned out by life is what finally gets heard.