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It seems that there is an interesting link between the emotive response caused by words and the meaning gained from understanding them. I think of how I had frustrating relationships with people - after I gave up on being close friends, or came to terms with their faults, things that would have used to have bothered me that they said didn't phase me.
Definitely, to get the force of the words, you have to have something invested emotionally in them or their source.
A cultural phenomenon that is very prevalent in the US, if not most other Western European nations is to reduce people to essential qualities based on singular events. Such as, reducing someone to being "stupid" because he didn't answer a question right in class, or someone as being mean because he lashed once. If you can take a more wholistic view of people and take into account the situations that cause people to act as they do, it is easier to step back and drop the initial reaction you have to what they say that puts you aback.
What really gives words force is when they have been established in a pattern of behavior. Out of place behavior can be let go fairly easily with apologies and the like, but you can't put aside a pattern of behavior as easily. Then, that serious outburst (or whatever) takes on a representation of the pattern, rather than just a bad day.
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Innominate.
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