Ep 7 | The Hidden Emotional Cost of Growing Up Between Worlds

Growing up across countries and cultures can look like a gift from the outside. What it actually costs is a story most people never get to tell. Ruth Van Reken, co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds and one of the foundational voices in the global TCK conversation, joins Dr. Doug Ota and Nikki Muller for a rare, deeply personal conversation spanning boarding school at six, repatriation into a country that felt foreign, unresolved grief that surfaced decades later, and the journaling process that helped her unpack years of unacknowledged endings. The landmark “TCK bible” will soon be release in its 4th edition, cementing how Ruth’s research and lived experience has been a beacon for millions of cross-cultural communities across the globe. Things You Will Learn: Why living a full life requires embracing the paradox of the TCK experience: it is both enriching and incredibly painful. Why so many globally mobile people don't begin to reckon with their transitions until their 30s or 40s and what it takes to get strong enough to finally look. The difference between encouragement and comfort in transition and why being encouraged before being comforted effectively discounts the loss entirely. Tools & Frameworks Covered: The continuous meal of loss: mobility doesn't just mean leaving places; it means repeatedly losing a world, a self, relationships, and a sense of who you are in a community, often without any space or time to grieve any of it. Grief, despair, and detachment: Bowlby's grief model shows up directly in the boarding school experience and in repatriation: first the protest, then the despair, then the only option left — cutting off feelings entirely just to survive. Hidden losses: the losses that accompany any major transition, that aren't recognized as losses at all, because they are invisible: lifestyle, language, identity within a community, the version of yourself that only made sense in the place you left. #RuthVanReken #ThirdCultureKids #HiddenLossesInTransition #TCKAdult #GriefAndBelonging 🎙️ Join The Safe Passage Podcast for thoughtful conversations on life transitions, grief, identity, belonging, and the human need for safe connection. Spotify: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/033jTOn... Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/ch/podcast... YouTube: ⁠   / @thesafepassagepodcast