There's something I keep coming back to. In her wildly successful parenting book The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, Philippa Perry writes about the difference between criticising a behaviour and rejecting a person.
When children receive feedback that doesn't make this distinction clear, when "you did something wrong" feels like "you ARE wrong," they learn that criticism equals rejection. That someone pointing out a problem means they don't value who you are.
A child spills their drink. One parent says: "You're so clumsy. What's wrong with you?" Another says: "The drink spilled. Let's clean it up together and next time we can use two hands."
The first child learns they are the problem. The second learns the behaviour needs adjusting, but they themselves are still okay.
Even reading these examples, the second response might feel awkward or unnatural—because most of us grew up hearing the first kind. We carry this learning in our bodies into adulthood. We never learnt to separate behaviour from personhood, so we can't give honest feedback without it feeling like attack, and we can't receive it without it feeling like abandonment.
This is why sincerity has become so rare.
Sincerity isn't just telling the truth. It's being able to say "this thing you're doing isn't working" while simultaneously holding "I still value you. I'm still with you." It's the capacity to be honest about what's not working while remaining genuinely invested in the other person's wellbeing.
"Most of us never learnt to hold both at once, and so we've lost access to a kind of care that feels like love and truth in the same breath."
I built my legal practice on a principle: clarity is kindness. Not just clarity about legal options or case strategy, but clarity in the contracts themselves. When agreements are genuinely clear, when both parties understand exactly what they're committing to, and the terms are fair enough that both sides feel respected, there's little reason to end up in court.
Most litigation emerges from vagueness or unfairness. Ambiguous terms that each party interprets differently. One-sided agreements that leave someone feeling exploited. Language that seems straightforward until something goes wrong and everyone realises they had completely different understandings of what was promised.
My clients value my contract drafting as litigation-proof. Not because the contracts are weaponised to win disputes, but because they are so clear and fair that disputes rarely emerge. When everyone understands what they've agreed to, and the terms respect both parties' interests, there's nothing to fight about. When conflicts do arise from unclear contracts, the only people who benefit are litigation lawyers.
That's clarity as kindness: creating conditions where conflict doesn't need to escalate because the foundation is already clear and equitable.
What I learnt drafting contracts, I've come to see everywhere. When we can be clear about behaviour (this isn't working) while being fair to the person (you still matter), conflict doesn't have to escalate into rejection or war.
But so few of us learnt to do this.
"We either stay vague to avoid conflict, or we make it personal when we finally speak up. We've lost the ground where clarity and care can breathe together."
This pattern shows up everywhere once you start looking for it.
Your friend teaches a fitness class and genuinely wants to improve. They ask for feedback. What you want to say is, the cues are coming too late—people are already in the wrong position by the time the instructions arrive. But you can't tell them, because telling them feels like saying "you're bad at this" or "you shouldn't be teaching." The feedback collapses into rejection in your body before you even speak. So you say it was great. Everyone says it was great. And your friend never improves because no one who cares will tell them what's not working.
Or the restaurant asks how the food was. Not the perfunctory "was everything fine?" but actually wanting to know. The food wasn't good. But saying that feels like attacking the chef, criticising the server, being difficult. So you say it was fine. And they never learn that something in their kitchen isn't working.
Or you're in a workplace where someone's behaviour is clearly destructive. A manager who spreads toxicity. A partner who berates people behind closed doors. Patterns that harm everyone who works there. Everyone can see it. Everyone knows. But no one will name it, because naming it feels like attacking the person. We've lost the ability to say: "This behaviour is harmful AND you're still a person who deserves dignity. I'm telling you this because I see your capacity for better, because I know you care about doing good work, because the person you actually are is worth more than these patterns you've fallen into. These aren't contradictory."
I spent years in a workplace like this. The problems were obvious. A partner who berated people in closed-door meetings. A HR manager who spread toxicity while performing professionalism. Dynamics that made every new person struggle in predictable ways.
Everyone knew. Junior lawyers would find each other in the kitchen, in whispered conversations, processing the stress and confusion together. Everyone could see what was wrong. But no one said anything. Not to the people whose behaviour was causing harm. Not in meetings where it might have mattered. Not in any way that could shift what was happening.
We all had our reasons. The culture had made it clear, in dozens of small ways, that naming problems was the same as being the problem. That giving feedback about someone's behaviour meant rejecting them as a person.
So we had two options: perform niceness—say everything was fine, maintain surface professionalism, avoid anything that might create discomfort. Or withdraw entirely—stop being invested, keep your head down, decide it wasn't your responsibility to care.
Neither required us to hold behaviour and personhood as separate. Niceness meant pretending the behaviour wasn't a problem. Withdrawal meant writing off the entire person.
What we couldn't do was be with people whose behaviour was harmful. To say "what you're doing is causing damage AND I still see you as worthy of care." That's sincerity, and it requires something most of us are running on empty of.
You can't be sincere with someone when you're depleted or in survival mode.
Sincerity requires enormous internal resource. You have to be steady enough to hold two seemingly contradictory truths at once: this behaviour is problematic AND this person has value. When you're depleted, you can't hold both. You collapse them together—either you accept the behaviour, or the person is irredeemable.
This is what happened in that workplace. None of us had enough internal resource to stay with people whose behaviour was harmful while also being honest about the harm. So the harmful behaviour continued, because everyone was either performing niceness (the behaviour is fine, everything's fine) or had withdrawn (those people are toxic, not worth engaging). The ground where you could say "your behaviour is causing real problems AND I still believe you're capable of changing it" required more steadiness than any of us had.
This is why toxic workplaces stay toxic. Not because people don't see the problems or don't care, but because the collective internal resource isn't there to hold behaviour and personhood as separate.
"When no one has what it takes to name harmful behaviour without it collapsing into personal rejection, only two responses remain: silence or war."
Silence—we pretend the behaviour isn't happening, perform niceness, maintain surface harmony while the culture quietly poisons everyone.
War—we decide the person is irredeemable, build cases against them, gossip, withdraw cooperation, work to push them out.
Neither is sincere. Neither holds both truths: the behaviour needs to change AND the person deserves dignity.
Sincerity requires enough steadiness to stay with someone even when their behaviour is problematic, to be invested in their growth and wellbeing while also being clear about what's not working. Few of us built that steadiness, because we never experienced it ourselves.
Think about how you learnt to receive feedback as a child. If "you did something wrong" meant "you ARE wrong," then you learnt that feedback equals danger. Now, as an adult, when someone points out a problem with your behaviour, your body responds as if you're being rejected. Your throat tightens. Your chest constricts. You either defend (the behaviour is fine, actually) or collapse (I'm terrible, I shouldn't even try). You can't hear "this specific thing isn't working" as separate from "you are failing as a person."
And if that's your experience receiving feedback, you can't give it either. You know how it feels to be criticised, and you don't want to do that to someone else. So you stay silent. You perform niceness. You say things are fine when they're not. Or you give feedback so harshly that it becomes rejection, because you never learnt the middle ground.
This is what Philippa Perry identifies: we're either conflict-avoidant or needlessly harsh as adults because we never learnt to give or receive feedback that keeps behaviour and personhood separate. We've lost the ground where sincerity can exist.
Sincerity lives in that middle ground. It's being able to say to your friend: "The class cues are coming too late, people are in the wrong position before they hear the instruction" AND "I think you're a great teacher, I want your classes to be successful, that's why I'm telling you this."
It's being able to say to a colleague: "The way you spoke to the team in that meeting was demeaning and made people afraid to contribute" AND "I know you care about this project, I know you're under pressure, I'm telling you this because I want us to work together effectively."
It's being able to say to the restaurant when they ask how the food was: "This meal wasn't good. The chicken was overcooked and dry, the vegetables were soggy and very salty" AND "I'm telling you because I assume you want to serve good food and I'd like to come back."
The behaviour is a problem AND the person is valued. Both are true. But holding both requires internal resource few of us have, a steadiness we never built because no one held both truths for us when we were learning how feedback works.
I notice this constantly in my work. People come to therapy clear about what needs to change—at work, in relationships, in their own patterns. But they can't have the conversations. Can't give the feedback. Can't name what's obviously not working. Not because they lack clarity, but because they've learnt that naming problems equals rejection. They either stay silent (niceness: pretend it's fine) or avoid the person entirely (withdrawal: write them off completely). What they can't do is stay with someone whose behaviour is problematic. They can't hold "this isn't working" and "I still value you" at the same time.
That steadiness has to be built. You can't think your way into it. It develops through relationships where someone else holds both truths for you first. Where you experience what it feels like to receive feedback that doesn't mean rejection. Where you learn through your body that someone can say "this behaviour is harmful" while simultaneously communicating "you are worthy of care."
This is what therapeutic relationships create. Not through insight or strategy, but through something that happens when two people learn to stay steady together. You experience someone being with you, genuinely invested in your wellbeing, genuinely caring about your growth, while also being completely honest about patterns that aren't serving you. And slowly, you learn: feedback doesn't equal rejection. Honesty doesn't destroy connection. Someone can say "this isn't working" and still be on your side.
"Feedback doesn't equal rejection. Honesty doesn't destroy connection."
That's what builds the capacity for sincerity.
I left that toxic workplace eventually. Not because I suddenly became clearer about what was wrong—I'd been clear from the beginning. I left because I'd built enough internal resource to act on what I knew. To say "this isn't working for me" without needing it to mean "everyone here is terrible" or "I failed." The behaviour was harmful AND the people had value. Both could be true.
That's what the work is. Not getting clearer about what's wrong—most people already know. The work is building enough steadiness to hold behaviour and personhood as separate. To give feedback without it becoming rejection. To receive feedback without it destroying you. To be with people, including yourself, in a way that makes sincerity possible. To trust that you can say "this isn't working" and still communicate "I value you." To know that clarity can be kindness, that honesty and care can breathe in the same space.
We need this capacity back. Not just in therapy rooms, but everywhere. In workplaces where naming harmful behaviour doesn't become character assassination. In friendships where honest feedback doesn't end relationships. In families where "this behaviour isn't acceptable" doesn't mean "you are unacceptable." In communities where sincerity—that quality of genuine care combined with honest communication about what's not working—becomes possible again.
This isn't about being more honest or having more courage. It's about building the internal steadiness to hold two truths at once: this behaviour is problematic, and this person has value. Both. At the same time.
That's the sincerity we've lost. And that's what needs to come back—not just for ourselves, but for the possibility of being truly with each other again.