You know, these are more Rosemary's kind of expressions, but settling back, stepping back, there can be little differences in how I read these two different phrases. Stepping back is coming out of a situation and looking at it. Settling back can be still in the situation.
Example in Bangkok: it has some very, very busy big streets. The city has around 8 million people, and some of the streets are six lanes one way. When one of these big, major streets crosses with another big six lane street, they will actually keep the light red for five minutes. The traffic just keeps coming, coming, coming. They hold it red for five and then it goes the other way for five. Now, in America or Australia, it's like wait thirty seconds, go, wait thirty seconds, go, and you always feel you are moving up, there's a psychological nicety there. But there is another reason why they hold it red for five minutes in Thailand, and that is because there are so many motorbikes. While the light is red all the motorbikes get to the front. This helps separate the cars from the motorbikes. The minute the light turns green the motorbikes go off like they're on a racing track, they go off like mad. That's a little advantage to moving the traffic easy
Now, if a Westerner arrives for the first time in Bangkok and stands at one of those corners, it's often like shock. They are waiting and waiting for five minutes and finally the light turns green. They start to walk across the streets and the bikes go off in a cloud of smoke with all the noise.
Ok, two different types of meditators in this situation: one person might settle back, in their reaction, the other person might try to step back. This is where a difference is. One person has done only Samatha-concentration meditation, just to get calm, using their breath to escape the world. They feel very calm, but it is not Vipassana like we are doing. This type of person standing on a corner, the light turns green, the bikes go off, they feel the shock coming up inside themselves, it's fear, everything - and they want to escape. They shut their eyes and go right into their breathing in order to calm down. In this way, they step out of the reality to try to calm down.
A person who has done the Vipassana type of practice, hopefully, standing at the corner, the bikes go off, they see the same shock, and then they note, "seeing, seeing," "hearing, hearing," "smelling, smelling," and they stay right there, settling right into the reality of that moment.
So this is a difference in the way that we can use these words. When we settle in, it's ok. Everything's fine. Stepping back may mean we don't want to be there, which might be ok, too, at a certain time but it depends. If we can actually be with an unpleasant experience and actually not react with anger, react with fear, react with wanting to escape, etc., we can actually settle right into it. Then that could possibly be the best way.