As software comes under increasing scrutiny for its lack of safety and reliability, numerous static and partially dynamic tools (including model checking) have been proposed for verifying large and complex systems of interacting components. However, because these tools have been largely unsuccessful, it is essential to develop dynamic mechanisms able to enforce runtime safety properties. We aim to address this goal through a runtime system, called Myrrh, that can provide broad safety and reliability guarantees. Myrrh uses transactions, an abstraction commonly associated with database systems, in order to create autonomic capabilities that support automated recovery within the context of a general purpose programming language. The resulting code is self-correcting; exceptions cause faulty transactions to rollback and thus return the system to its previous state.