The dramatic set up made it rather obvious — Maria was going in the water during last night’s episode of The Biggest Loser on NBC.

She was deathly afraid of the challenge, which required contestants to carry balls across a balance beam in a pool. As the challenge neared the end, Maria, spouting rounds of “I can’t!” jumped off the beam and fell face-first into a concrete slab.

Her nose was bloody. She ended up with a black eye and some busted fingers.

Later, trainer Jillian took her in the pool to conquer her fear of the water, having her float on her back, then doggy-paddle, then kick.

We get so bombarded with stories of “overcoming fear” that occasionally we get desensitized to the fear we have in our own lives.

The idea of the law of attraction is that what you think about, you will create in your life. Think enough about your fears and they will not only show up in your life, they will show up big and powerful in your life. What you give your attention to in your mind is what will manifest itself in your life.

We can be so conditioned to the things that we’re afraid of sometimes that we fail to even recognize what they are. Or we fail to recognize how powerful they are in our lives.

When we start to see our fears for what they really are, we’re better able to make conscious choices in our lives — better able to make the choices that allow us to be the people we were meant to become. We can turn our attention to the things we want to draw into our lives and see that grow.