You can always say No!

Recently in my life I partecipated to different consense workshops.
There I learn that is always possible to say no.
First time I hear of it I thought:
"Ok, this is not for me. I have no problem saying no."
I never got in a situation where someone took advantages of me, I never have been in a dangerous situation.
If I don't like someone, I just clearly say and that's it. So nothing to learn for me here.
After the workshops I learn that there are so many subtle situations where I didn't even know I didn't say no, but I did.
The consense workshops I joined are mostly about intimacy.
One of the most common example that made me realize I often didn't say no is: Being with someone you like, feeling attraction, get to the point of almost have sex and then for whatever reason don't feel to have sex anymore.
This situation happened to me so many times.
And I often thought I couldn't speak up my mind and just say "I don't feel it anymore" because, well, we got to this point so the other person will be upset/angry/feeling fooled.. or the worst, the other person is so horny that will not agree on stopping.
This made me realize how many other times I didn't say no in my life, like when I go to a social situation and I spend hours listening to people I don't care what they are saying just because I don't want to be unpolite/I don't want them to feel upset.

I'm very happy I did those workshops and learned about saying no, boundaries and consense.
This made me realize lots of different situations in which I was not respecting my boundaries and ending up in uncomfortable situations which left me less happy and more distrustful.
I'm very happy I did those workshops before starting to travel fulltime as a solo woman since I now know my limits, how to listen to myself and therefore I avoid ending up in uncomfortable situations.

Feeling safe with strangers

It happened to me more than once that I talk with random man in the street.
Sometimes It happens that the conversation starts as a nice exchange and at one point I feel it moves to something different, I feel those men start to have a sexual interest in me. And I'm not interested. I also have the feeling they are not the kind of people that are happy to get a "no". (doesn't mean they are gonna be violent towards me, it just means they will make it stressful for me to leave the situation).
This is the typical situation why many people would say solo woman travel is not a good idea.
As soon as I have this feeling in my gut, a feeling that something isn't going in the direction I'm expecting, I take distance from the situation.
I thank the other person for the time spent with me and say I need to go or I need to be alone.
Some of them aren't very happy, some of them look at me weirdly saying stuff like: "I'm not interested in you" or "I don't want anything from you"
Or try to shame me and make me feel I'm thinking too highly of myself
with a sentence like: "What do you think, we are all here looking for
you?" or "Oh c'on, take another beer, I don't bite." or also "Pff is
just another beer, don't be a party pooper".
I don't care about what they say or how they try to make me feel "not cool". As soon as I feel just tiny bit unsafety in myself, I removed myself from the situation.
And I repeat: Just a tiny bit of unsafety!
Don't wait to actually feel unsafe. That could be too late.
Again, I'm not talking about rape or any other really bad situation but even just sitting next to a person for another hour or two, not feeling comfortable and wondering all the time how can you go home gives a feeling of unsafety.

That will make you more fearful the next time you are in a similar situation and possibly not allow you to experience new potentially cool people.
Is very important to be able to know how to say a clear No and not let others manipulate you.
If you want to know more about how to set your boundaries and bravely say no, check out this my other article: https://travelinsideandout.me/settings-boundaries-saying-no/

Conclusion:

Until I didn't trust myself being able to say clearly "No", I wasn't allowing myself to be in a situation where I potentially have to say no and therefore I precluded myself from lots of situations and ended up thinking I need to do all by my self: What happens if I ask someone for help, they do help me, and then he/she asks me something else I don't want to do it? I cannot say no, would be unpolite!

I can always say no. Even if people have been extremely nice to me, even if people will be upset after it.
Learn to say no is also a journey I have done where I learn to accept rejections and I learn that a discussion is not equal to being abandoned.
Be patience and nice to yoursefl as you would do for somoene you really love and you see struggle.