ABOUT JAY SHIFMAN
Jay Shifman (he, him) believes no one is free until we all are free. When he’s not creating beauty on the page as a poet and writer, he’s photographing it in the world. His award-winning photography features vibrant colors, stark contrasts, and overt messages, and has been found in numerous publications and exhibits including Philadelphia Stories, The Copenhagen Photo Festival, and Fusion Arts. His writing has been featured in an array of outlets including Hive Avenue Literary Journal, Radical Catalyst, and L’Espirit Literary Review. You can regularly find Jay documenting protests and the violent response from the police. He lives in South Philly with his primary partner/ wife, Lauren, and their dogs Nell and Crash.
Jay founded his company, Choose Your Struggle, in 2015 with two distinct goals: ending stigma and promoting honest and fact-based education around the topics of Mental Health, Substance Misuse & Recovery, and Drug Use & Policy. A fervent believer in radical honesty and the simple fact that neither struggle nor recovery should be treated as a one-size fits all experience, Jay uses his voice, and his platforms to educate, entertain, and empower.
Looking to make these conversations even more accessible, Jay launched the Choose Your Struggle podcast in early 2020. In a short amount of time, Choose Your Struggle launched into the top .2% of worldwide listenership and cracked numerous top lists and venerable rankings. The show combined vulnerable storytelling and expert education around the topics of mental health, substance misuse & recovery, and drug use & policy. Past guests included former congressmember Katie Hill, celebrated authors John Hudak and Emily Dufton, advocates Tessa Xuan, Ifetayo Harvey, and Justine Ang Fonte, and many more. The podcast was so successful that Jay launched the Shameless Podcast Network in January of 2021 with the goal of helping other podcasts destroy their own stigmas.
An accomplished orator in his own right, Jay has numerous speaking and storytelling events to his name. He prides himself on his practiced approach of drawing in the listener while discussing hard topics in a way that puts a human face on struggles that we often discuss in a dehumanizing way. Not content with only one platform, in 2021 Jay began producing two narrative event series, Rock Bottom Storytellers and A Day in the Life, which gave voice to shared experiences, normalized discussing periods of struggle, and sought to build community around our shared cultural love of a good story! Both events were virtual and broadcast on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Twitch.
In 2022, Jay decided to take a break from focusing on this work full-time to dedicate himself to his passions of writing, photography, and volunteering. You can find examples of his work on other pages on this site. In 2025, Jay and Lauren decided to open Flashpoint Gallery and Community Space in South Philly. A hub for art and radical community, Flashpoint is available for meetings, events, and more.
Holding a BA in Psychology from Northern Kentucky University and with over a decade of lived and professional experience in the field, Jay has put in numerous hours of independent learning acquiring certifications in mental health, substance misuse and addiction, drug policy and more.
For more information, you can him on Instagram at SouthPhillyJays.
