Marla Maples Talks Her Dating Life, Positivity, Hugging Trees & The Rock (but Not Trump)

"I’m not in the White House. I have friends on both sides. I will just walk in the middle," Maples says

Life seems pretty zen right now for Marla Maples, the Righteous Gemstones actress and second ex-wife of President Donald Trump.

In a New York Times “Sunday Routine” piece published this week, Maples, 56, shared the ways she keeps her life balanced and seemingly far away from the controversies of her ex’s administration.

Maples and Trump divorced in 1999 after a six-year marriage and one child, Tiffany.

“I’m not in the White House. I have friends on both sides. I will just walk in the middle,” Maples told the Times. “I’ll do everything I can to remind people that any type of anger or judgment can truly have such a negative impact on ourselves, and absolutely on our environment.”

NATALIE KEYSSAR/The New York Times/Redux

Speaking with the Times, Maples expressed a deep love for nature and described how she sometimes wanders off into Central Park to just “hug a tree” and “feel the earth.” (Trump, by contrast, has made a concerted effort to dismantle federal environmental regulations, feeling they restrict business, and has pushed to discredit the threat of climate change.)

Indeed, Maples was open to talking about morning meditation, yoga, turmeric potions, tennis, her Christian faith, her crush on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and vegan gluten-free pizza — but not Trump.

“I really just wake up without being concerned with how I’m going to manifest,” she said.

While others in the family have turned political alongside the president, including even Maples’ daughter, she has declined.

“I always knew that this would be happening,” Maples told PEOPLE in 2016 during Trump’s first presidential campaign. “It was something we talked about when we were first together, him running for president and what that would mean for our family.”

But after years in the spotlight fielding questions all about her rollercoaster relationship with Trump in the ’90s and what came after, she’s choosing to focus on other things and leaving others to head into the fray.

Marla Maples (left) with daughter Tiffany Trump. Dave Benett/Getty

On dating, too, Maples demurs.

“It hasn’t really interested me but I’ve opened the door to it. I’ve been so focused on family and building a career,” she told the Times.

Mostly, Maples has been trying to find — in her words — “the positive in all things.”

“I choose not to judge anybody else,” she said on the Today show last year. “I don’t want to be judged, so how can I judge another human being? I say to my friends, ‘Let’s help lift this world, not bring it down.’ ”