> words matter more than you realize
I could not disagree more. Words are meaningless. They are sounds. They only matter if you choose to give them meaning.
The proof is incredibly simple. I speak multiple languages, one of them is Spanish. However, it is South American Spanish and not any of the dialects spoken in Spain. A common insult in Spain is "gilipollas". It means absolutely nothing to me, even though I know what it means ant that is an insult. Someone could call me gilipollas all day and I would probably die laughing; frankly, it really sounds funny to me.
What if you are insulted in a language you don't understand? Same thing. Meaningless. At that point it really becomes just sounds. And that's the point. The only process that gives words meaning and can attach them to negative emotions is in your brain.
Put a different way: Nobody can force you to interpret words as an insult or something to get emotional about except for yourself.
I got my kids used to not caring about insults by actually insulting them. Things like "You are a moron!" quickly became the subject of jokes at our home, with them being free to call me anything they want in response. At first I had to do this because one of my kids ran into verbal bullies at school. It is amazing to see just how much power one gains by removing meaning from words used to deliver insults. At the limit they become nothing less than a joke.
Verbal insults, at the end of the day, are signs of weakness. The person who has to resort to diminishing someone else verbally in person or --as is often seen-- online, has to resort to such nonsense because, well, to be kind, they have nothing else to offer. Why give someone like that the power to interpret those words as they wish you would interpret them? The best approach is to turn those words into irrelevant noise. To go from that, to have words affect you for life? No, that's a big mistake.