Why You Need To Watch "The Lost Daughter"

After reading the novel “The Lost Daughter,” the acclaimed actress Maggie Gyllenhaal (and sister to stud, Jake), became obsessed with the idea of adapting the story for screen. 

But she had two giant obstacles in her way. 

Even though she’d spent most of her life in front of the camera, she'd never written a screenplay before, and wasn’t sure she’d be any good at it.

But that wasn’t the biggest block. She first had to convince Elena Ferrante, the mysteriously anonymous Italian author to trust her with the story. 

Gyllenhaal had only one shot to write the perfect letter. She spent weeks editing and tweaking it to make her plea as honest and vulnerable as humanly possible. And it worked. Ferrante granted her the rights to the story, but under two conditions:

1. Gyllenhaal could have the screen rights, as long as she directed the movie herself. If she passed it to someone else, the contract would be null and void, forcing Gyllenhaal to quickly overcome her imposter syndrome and make a movie. 

2. Gyllenhaal had to portray the main character, Leda, as sane. Even though Leda's behaviors dance along the edges of sanity, Ferrante didn’t want the character to tip into "crazy lady" territory. 
   
   

I love that Ferrante made these two conditions explicit because A) She helped a women step into her light and B) She made it really hard for the viewer to judge Leda, which, in my opinion, is what makes the movie so brilliant.  

 

If you haven’t seen the Oscar-nominated movie, "The Lost Daughter" is about Leda, a 48-year-old professor played brilliantly by Olivia Colman, who’s relaxing Greek island holiday is interrupted and reshaped by a wild, obnoxious, fascinating family from Queens, New York.

The bizarre and uncomfortable interactions between Leda and the family prompt a steady flow of flashbacks to Leda’s early years as a young mother. 

Without spoiling the film for you, these flashbacks flesh out a portrait of a woman with some heavy-ass baggage. As a viewer, we desperately want to judge her baggage, to create space between us and her, but Gyllenhaal won’t let us do that. 

There’s just something about Leda, her imperfections, her realness, her roller-coaster range of emotions, that is endearing. We can relate. I did relate! 


Led's not a bad person, even though she does some truly odd and cringeworthy things that "good moms" on screens just don't do. And the fact that it’s hard to judge her, to label her as “crazy" forces us to acknowledge shadow parts of ourselves that she reflects at us. 

“I hope the movie is compassionate about how complicated being alive is,” explains Gyllenhaal in one of the million interviews I’ve devoured since seeing the film. “I was really trying to open the spectrum of acceptable feelings, and that has been really helpful to me, to allow myself to see in myself all sorts of complicated feelings and not indict myself for them.” 

As a coach I’ve realized that the #1 issue my clients struggle with is self-compassion. We are our harshest critics, no doubt about it. 

And for me this film is a beautiful and powerful reminder that one door to self-compassion is the softening stance towards others. 

Go see this film and let me know what comes up. 

Neuroscience Nuggets #4: The Science Of Self-Compassion

I like to know what I’m having for lunch before I land at the office. 

The reason is that I have a short window between clients and that time is precious. 

On this particular Tuesday morning, my plan was to pick up a salad at my favorite neighborhood spot on my walk over to work. 

I already knew that the Thai noodle salad I had in mind would pair well with the mushroom soup leftover from yesterday’s lunch. (By the way, am I the only person,  who does this, dream up lunch plans at 9am?)

Anyhow, as I walked by my favorite spot I saw someone sitting outside I wanted to avoid. He's close with someone I no longer have any contact with. I didn't want any potential awkwardness, so I picked up my pace and let my adored salad fade into the distance. 
 

I continued on, undeterred, and my eyes lit up as I remembered another great spot for salads. But when I got to that bakery I discovered a barren display case where the salads usually reside. It was too early. My plans were foiled once again!

Arriving salad-less to my office I heard myself saying “Zeva! Why you were so weak? You should have been more brave and got what you wanted! Now you need to go out again! You don’t have time for that!”

I could feel my throat tensing up, and feelings of weakness, inadequacy, and not-enough-ness coursing through my body. 

And then I remembered this neuroscience nugget I wanted to share with you: negative self-talk is the worst possible thing you can do to yourself.  It is toxic as all hell. 

Scientific evidence shows that speaking to ourselves harshly, judging ourselves negatively, being unforgiving whenever we feel we like we’ve made a mistake, does exactly the opposite of what we think that kind of self-policing will do. 

Harsh self-criticism doesn’t motivate us. It does just the reverse: it convinces us there’s something wrong with us, that we’re flawed, weak, less valuable and less worthy than other people. 

Those beliefs lead to emotions like shame and guilt. Since those feelings feel like crap, we'll resort to anything to numb ourselves from them. Like giving into whatever immediate, mood-repairing, instant gratification we can find (more social media browsing, more Netflix, more snacks, more procrastination, more negative speak). It’s a very slippery slope. 

When our mindset tells us that we are broken and weak it makes it hard to tap into our willpower, our strength, our convictions, our purpose. By repeating those beliefs over and over and over, we just reinforce our sense of brokenness and weakness. 

So how do we change that pattern? 

When we shift the question around and ask ourselves "How can I make it easier to tap into my willpower, my strength, my motivation and my sense of purpose?" the answer becomes clear: 

It’s not through criticism and self-judgement, but through self-compassion and encouragement. 

Basically by speaking to yourself the way you would speak to your best friend. 

So if my best friend told me her salad story, I’d say something like:

“Listen, darling, you wanted to avoid a complex conversation. You wanted to preserve your energy for more important things. You protected yourself from a body budget energy withdrawal. Getting out of the office to grab something will be good for you. You’ll get some fresh air and a change of scenery. And who knows, maybe you’ll even use this story in one of your neuroscience nuggets newsletters.” 

PS. There are some amazing resources and references to the science of self-compassion so if you’re interested in going further you can start here with this wonderful TedX talk by self-compassion expert Dr. Kristen Neff. Her website also has a self-compassion test you can take with exercises to help increase your self-compassion self-talk. 

PPS. Another self-compassion mentor of mine is Tara Brach, who wrote an exceptional book all about it called Radical Compassion. 

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash