The Yogahealer Podcast L Ayurveda L Yoga L Healthy Foods | Yoga Teachers With Cate Stillman

About this episode: In this episode of the Thrive with Cate Stillman Podcast, Cate shows up on her 53rd birthday — fresh from surgery and fresh from an all-night mission helping a neighbor navigate a financial and legal crisis — and delivers one of the most honest, layered conversations in the Gut Health Challenge series. What begins as a reflection on Maslow's lesser-known final insight — that self-transcendence, not self-actualization, sits at the true peak of human development — unfolds into a rich exploration of how gut health, identity, and meaning are all deeply interconnected. Cate draws a direct line between the health of your microbiome and the personality you inhabit, introducing the concept of the microbiome signature and what loss of microbial diversity actually costs you at an identity level. She also explores the gut-brain-vagus nerve connection through the lens of her own surgical recovery, the emotional and psychological layers that surface during fasting, and why waking at 3am with memorie