WHO DO I SAY I AM?

A Christianity-based guide focuses on self-knowledge.

Somone, who calls herself a “badass spiritual life coach and motivational speaker,” here lays out a Christian program intended to allow her readers to “plow through their clouds of unwanted circumstances one step at a time.” The program has 12 steps, starting with the assumption that “God is all things at all times, and he is always good.” Using this supposition, the author calls on her readers to identify their own “true” natures and, in the spirit of the book’s title, assert who they are. From that starting point, Somone advocates a number of approaches, such as writing down their own life stories, meditation, and of course prayer. The author reflects that readers create their own worlds, although she paradoxically also notes that “so-called coincidences should be seen as they are; lamps unto our feet; guides in the night; and connections to God, Spirit, Christ, self, Source, the universe, life, and love.” This combination of free will and divine predestination runs throughout Somone’s elaboration of her 12 steps, and all of it is designed to answer some basic questions her readers may be asking, universal concerns like “Does my current life line up with what I want?” The author colors her life coaching with anecdotes from her own autobiography and periodic exercises designed to get her readers to apply her teachings to their day-to-day realities. The manual makes frequent allusions to both other self-help authors and to Scripture, although Somone’s readings of the latter are sometimes confrontationally fiery enough to raise the eyebrows of her more religiously conservative readers. At one point, she writes: “I am the Christ. You are the Christ. I am God incarnate. You are God incarnate. I am Spirit. You are Spirit.” That iconoclastic tone is also what makes the book so readable.

A forceful, unconventional, step-by-step plan to help Christians find their real identities.