Welcome to issue #008 of Under the Surface. Each week, I share one thoughtful piece to help you grow, lead and thrive in the messy reality of project work. If something lands - or misses - I’d love to hear your thoughts. And if you’re exploring what’s next, you can join the Pathfinder waitlist to go deeper with others on the same journey.

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Recently, I attended the TNA UK Annual Conference in Cardiff. The keynote speaker was Mr George Eralil, the neurosurgeon who performed my microvascular decompression (MVD) surgery in 2019.

I wasn’t quite sure how I’d respond to the day emotionally. It’s often said that trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a club no one wants to be a part of and yet, there we all were.

The room was filled with people at different stages of their journey. Some were newly diagnosed, full of questions. Others had exhausted every treatment option available. A few had lived with TN for 10, 20, even 30 years. And some, like me, had experienced profound relief after surgery.

But all of us had changed.

Not just physically… mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Pain forces that change. It breaks things down. It reduces life to essentials.

In that room, I was struck not just by the information shared, but by the shared understanding. The unspoken solidarity. The kindness between strangers.

The many forms of pain

Pain doesn’t come in a single form. It can be physical, emotional, mental or even spiritual. Some pain is chronic and gnawing. Some is sharp and acute. Some arrives through illness, injury, or trauma. Some is enforced by the choices we make, like choosing to leave a job, end a relationship, or put ourselves through something that will hurt in the short term for the sake of long-term growth. Imagine a younge person going through basic infantry training to become a soldier.

In the world of projects, we don’t talk about pain often, but it’s always there. The pain of poor alignment, loss of confidence, public failure, burnout, strained relationships, fractured teams. The more risk you take, the more likely pain becomes.

According to Versus Arthritis, around 34% of adults in England experience chronic pain. That’s over 15.5 million people. 12% of them - nearly 1 in 8 - experience pain that limits their daily life. Statista data adds that 52% of UK adults report having experienced some form of physical pain in the past year.

Pain is not rare. It is the norm.

What pain left behind

In my own case, TN stripped away everything. It took two years from first symptoms to surgery. About 3–4 months to get on medication, a year to get a diagnosis and then a further year to get to surgery. In total, two years of daily, persistent, piercing pain.

When you live with that kind of pain, everything else becomes noise. Your world shrinks. Priorities shift. You stop pretending.

But interestingly, the most transformative part of my journey didn’t happen during the pain… it came after. Three years post-surgery, I hit an emotional wall. I’d tried to put it all behind me. I’d told myself it was over.

But it wasn’t. The physical pain was gone. But the emotional imprint remained.

That’s when I began to speak. To share. To process.

That’s when I changed.

A different kind of choice

At the conference, George reminded us all that the goal of the day was to inform and empower, not to promote a single treatment, but to help people understand their options. That message landed deeply.

Because even when the pain is gone, you’re left with a choice: Who will you be now?

Joe Dispenza puts it like this in Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself:

It’s easy to stay stuck in the old patterns of victimhood, resentment, fear. But what if you chose a different story? What if instead of asking “Why me?”, you asked, “Why not me?”

Michael Singer, in The Untethered Soul, writes:

These aren’t just ideas I agree with, they’ve shaped me.

The recurrence question

One sobering takeaway from the conference was this: Around 10% of MVD patients experience recurrence at the five-year point. That number climbs to 30% by ten years.

I’m six years post-op.

So do I sit and wait, expecting to be in the 30%? Or do I do everything within my control - mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually - to stay in the 70%?

I’ve already chosen.

And I made that choice not in the operating theatre, but in the three years that followed. When I let go of pretending. When I told the truth about how it felt. When I decided to build something better.

Hidden stories really do shape our lives

During the conference, I joined a patient panel. Each of us had a few minutes to speak. I didn’t want to dwell on the pain as everyone in that room knew what it felt like.

Instead, I focused on the emotional aftermath. The silence I’d kept. The toll of holding it all in. And the liberation that came when I let it out.

There’s a quiet power in sharing your story; not to be seen, but to help others feel seen.

To the project professional

In our world, pain shows up in different ways, but it’s just as real. You might not have a diagnosis. You might not be able to name the source. But you feel it. The reputational bruises. The personal sacrifices. The unrelenting pressure. The moments where you think, “Is this really worth it?”

Pain will change you. That much is certain.

So the real question isn’t whether it will happen, it’s how you’ll let it shape you. Will you harden? Withdraw? Numb yourself? Or will you allow it to soften you, to deepen you, to reveal something essential?

Pain. Changes. People.

So… how do you want to change?

Yours,

Gerwyn

PS – What we’re building at Coron Projects

I’m building something for project professionals who want more than just tasks and titles. Pathfinder is a new kind of membership built for people in engineering and construction who are ready to grow, lead and thrive on their terms. No corporate bullshit. No gatekeepers. Just the tools, support and mindset shifts that help you take ownership of your career.

It’s currently in development and if that sounds like something you might want in your corner, you can join the waitlist here and include “Pathfinder” in the message.