Helena does not want kids. Her husband believes she’ll change her mind—she has so much love to give, she would be a perfect mother. That will never happen, she tells him. Again. And again. Until one day, he leaves.

In the silence, doubt starts rushing in. So she asks her close friends, her mother, her sister, even a perfect stranger—did she make the right decision? What is the purpose of life? Center your pleasure, says one friend. Go for adventure, says another, and isn’t parenthood the biggest adventure of all? Be true to yourself, says a father who regrets his decision. But the voice she needs to hear is her own.

Get lost in someone else’s life. From a mysterious childhood spent on the run, to a courageous escape from domestic violence, each season of Personally invites you to explore the human experience in all its complexity, one story — or season — at a time. This is what it sounds like to be human.

Hear episodes early and ad-free on CBC Stories Premium on Apple Podcasts.

Season 1 | Run, Hide, Repeat: a story of a childhood spent on the run.

Season 2 | Welcome to Paradise: a courageous escape from domestic violence.

Season 3 | Short Sighted: an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds.

Season 4 | Sorry About The Kid: an emotional, deeply personal meditation on the loss of a sibling.

Season 5 | Toy Soldier: The unbelievable story of a Jewish boy amongst Nazis.

Season 6 | Forever is a Long Time: Every living member of Ian Coss' family who has been married has gotten divorced. Can his marriage end differently?

Season 7 | NO: Kaitlin Prest found herself wondering if the world forgot the lessons that shook 2017.

Season 8 | Resurrection: The story of Dane Stewart, a Canadian playwright, and what he did with a cache of love letters by a playwright named Daryl Allen, who died in 1991 from HIV/AIDS.