Journal of Self Leadership, Volume 3 · 2007
Standing at the Edge of the Abyss
Risk Taking, Transcendence and the Art of Letting Go
An exploration of transcendence as movement toward the earth, emotional pain, and vulnerability. Through personal narrative, clinical experience, nervous-system theory, and an Internal Family Systems lens, the article considers the abyss as both a container for exiled experience and a threshold through which risk, surrender, and healing can become possible.
Editorial context ·
Reference corrections to the original essay
This 2007 essay is preserved in its original form. A reference review on 16 October 2026 identified the following bibliographic corrections; they do not change the essay’s clinical reflections.
Names, title, and editorial credit
Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body, and Brain (2003) is an edited collection, edited by Marion F. Solomon and Daniel J. Siegel, rather than a book authored by Siegel alone.
The psychologist’s surname is Csikszentmihalyi; the spiritual writer’s name is Henri Nouwen. Peter Stark’s book is titled Last Breath: The Limits of Adventure, without an initial “The.” The cited 2002 edition is retained.
Publication years for older books may reflect later printings. Edition-specific dates and page locators for the essay’s longer quotations remain under review; these corrections should not be read as verification of every quotation against its original edition.
The original PDF below retains its original wording. Read it together with these clarifications, which are separate from that edition.
© 2007 Brian Kennedy. All rights reserved.